Domination At All Costs
by Kernl Autobahn Sandrz
Summary: Magneto still isn't giving up on dominating the human race. But this time, he's betraying his own kind to get what he wants. With original characters on both sides, can the Xmen prevail again? finished story, by the way
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Hey, it's my first story, right? So it probably won't turn out to be that great, right? Well, just give me a chance, people, I'm begging you, PLEASE!!! Anyway, I don't own X-Men. I only own the limitless amount of original characters, actually all original characters except three. Bear, Aaron, and Shawn. Those devious characters belong to the very cough kind and forgiving cough Pyrotic. Yes, I asked and got permission, so I simply borrowed the characters. Don't expect to hear me tell you what I own in every single chapter, so if you have any questions, ASK!!! Try to enjoy the story.

* * *

Brad Kilburne listened intently. He knew he was being followed. He had seen the shadowy figures darting behind the trees as they pursued him. He ran past a few more trees.

Brad was in his thirties. He was often thought to be older because of his appearance. He was a tall man with brown hair. The part about him that disturbed most people was his pale skin and his yellow eyes.

Brad risked a look around the tree. He knew he could probably take on whatever was coming after him.

Brad was a mutant. The few mutants who knew him referred to him as Zombie. He had found out what he was at a young age. He had been walking through the barn in which his family kept the cows. He had stepped on a nail that was concealed by the hay. Clutching his injured foot, he had fallen to the ground to find that his cut was mending itself at an extraordinary rate. He had decided to keep this a secret from his parents. It probably would have stayed a secret, but a few years later, his father took him hunting. His father shot at a squirrel, but instead hit a tree at a much too close range. The bullet ricocheted off of the tree and entered Brad's chest. His father received a terrible surprise when he realized that Brad was still alive. His parents were thankful for his survival, but from then on they seemed to fear him. He left his house when he was sixteen. He resorted to pick pocketing to survive.

Brad ran another few feet and stopped. Someone landed on his back. Brad reached behind him and took hold of the person's leg. He threw the person with all his might, sending it into a tree. To Brad's great surprise, the person simply stuck to the tree with its hands and feet. The person took this to an advantage and a slimy tongue shot out of its mouth and wrapped around Brad's legs. Brad toppled over onto the ground and was immediately lifted again, this time by a tall man with long hair and claws. Brad suddenly realized who was after him. The guy on the tree was a mutant called Toad. The man holding Brad in the air was Sabretooth. Brad had heard of both of them. They worked for the mutant known as Magneto. Sure enough, a shadowy figure stepped out of the trees. Brad knew immediately who it was.

"There is no use in running away," said Magneto calmly.

"What do you want from me?" asked Brad nervously.

"I only want to make you an offer," said Magneto, "I assume you know of the recent mutant imprisonment law."

"So what if I do?" retorted Brad angrily.

"This law is yet another example of mutant detestation," stated Magneto, "If they continue making these filthy proclamations, the whole mutant race will cease to exist."

"Can we move this along?" interrupted Toad.

"As I said before," asserted Magneto, giving Toad a warning look, "I am here to make you an offer. I am presenting the chance to avenge the mutant race, to purge the world of human scum."

Brad thought about all the times people had cowered in stores and averted their eyes when they saw him. He remembered all the people who pointed and stared at him through the windows of their houses. He felt a surge of hatred toward those people.

"Have you made your decision?" asked Magneto.

"Yes," said Brad, "this is an offer that I can't pass up."

"Good," said Magneto victoriously, "now if you'll put Mr. Kilburne down, Sabretooth, we can escort him to our headquarters."


	2. Life at the Mansion

Disclaimer: In case you didn't know, the only things in this story that I own are most of the new characters and the plot. Weren't you all in suspense after that exciting prologue. Probably not. Oh, well, if you don't like it, it's my problem. Or your problem. Well, it's a problem no matter who it belongs to. Anyway, expect a new chapter every week, unless I get caught up in some strange event or if I'm abducted by aliens. They won't be added on a specific day so expect random things to happen.

* * *

Bobby Drake woke up to the sound of music. He looked across the room to where the other bunks were. A boy with longish, blonde hair was sitting on the lower bunk. He was absorbed with the music that was blasting from his headphones. Bobby could distinctly make out the words '..._pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, metal roofing, waterproofing, multi-purpose insulation, air compressors, brass connectors...'. _He had heard enough.

"Ruben, shut that thing off!" moaned Bobby. The blonde boy known as Ruben looked up, confused.

"But, I'm not hungry," protested Ruben, "and besides, Mr. Kamon's waffles taste like mustard with pineapple."

Bobby gritted his teeth. He got out of bed and shut Ruben's Discman off.

"Hey," said Ruben, irritated, "I was listening to that."

"Precisely," remarked Bobby, "Why do you turn that up so loud?"

"It helps me strengthen my inner weirdness," replied Ruben.

"Hey, freaks, go back to sleep," grumbled Ray Crisp from above Bobby's bed.

"Dude, this waking up early thing is getting totally out of hand," agreed Allen Orris in his surfer accent.

"I'm going down to breakfast," Bobby declared, "I couldn't stay in here even if I wasn't hungry." He dressed and left the room. He thought about his roommate problem as he walked down the stairs. Ruben woke up early every morning to listen to "Weird Al" Yankovic turned up as high as it would go. He didn't mind the music so much, but having it played every morning at max volume got old after a while. His mind shifted to how it used to be. Ruben couldn't be any worse than having John Allerdyce bunk in your room. John had been just as annoying as Ruben was. John had recently left the institute and joined the Brotherhood.

"At least the room doesn't smell like smoke anymore," Bobby thought. He reached the large room in which they had their daily meals. He walked up to the counter where they served the food.

"Whatsit gonna be?" inquired Eugene Kamon, the cook, "come on, boy, I haven't got all day!"

"I'll have some eggs and bacon, please," said Bobby.

"There is no bacon!" scowled Mr. Kamon, "I didn't make any today!"

"What?" complained Bobby, "But..."

"What's the matter kid, you got wax in your ears?" snapped Mr. Kamon, "I said I didn't make any bacon today! You kids today just have to have everything you want on a silver platter!"

"Fine, I'll just have eggs," said Bobby, a little offended. Mr. Kamon piled the eggs onto his plate while mumbling something about respect. Bobby spotted his girlfriend Rogue across the room and walked towards her. Her name was actually Marie, but everyone called her Rogue.

"Hi," she said as Bobby approached her, "you look tired again today,"

"Ruben got up early to listen to his music again," muttered Bobby, "He can't hear a thing with his headphones on,"

The Meal Room started filling up rapidly. Bobby and Rogue were soon joined by Samuel Guthrie, Amara Aquilla, Shawn Kerr, Aaron Kerr, and to Bobby's slight annoyance Ruben Ryder. Bobby was about to say something to him when his eggs flew everywhere.

"Eggs nummy!" shouted the little ball of fur who was now sitting in the middle of Bobby's plate of eggs.

"Bear!" exclaimed Bobby as Ruben chuckled to himself, "get out of my eggs,"

The little furball shook himself, covering everyone with bits of eggs and laughed. Bobby picked him up and put him on the floor.

"Go ask the man with the long beard to give you your own eggs," said Bobby as he pointed to Mr. Kamon. Instead, the ball of hair waddled away towards a different table yelling, "Toast!"

Bobby looked back at his plate of eggs. It was covered in fur.

"Neat," Shawn smiled. Amara gave him a disgusted look. Bobby got up and threw his eggs away.

"Look at the time!" said Aaron nervously, "It's almost time for chemistry with Summers."

"Oh, yeah," said Ruben, "I've got physics."

"Too bad for you," remarked Shawn, "See you guys later,"

The twins left for chemistry. Sam walked away to go to his gym class. Amara followed Ruben toward their physics class.

"There's a lot of new kids this year," said Bobby.

"They're probably taking advantage of John's decision to join the Brotherhood," said Rogue seriously.

They started walking out of the Meal Room. They passed the table that Ray Crisp was sitting at. The hairball referred to as Bear was dripping with orange juice as he shook a piece of toast and a glass of milk. The milk splattered Ray's shirt.

"What a bummer, dude," muttered Allen Orris, who was sitting across from Ray.

"I'm gonna fry you!" shouted Ray as Bear jumped off the table, "Come back you stupid fuzzball!"

Bear just giggled and ran from the Meal Room, passing Bobby and Rogue as he went.

They continued to their history class. They entered and sat down in their seats.

"OK, class, you will all continue working on your timelines today," announced Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm, their history teacher. There was a knock on the door.

"Keep working, class," said Storm, as she moved towards the door. She opened it to find Professor Charles Xavier sitting in his wheelchair.

"What is it, Professor?" asked Storm.

"Magneto has recruited another mutant to the Brotherhood," said Xavier calmly.

"What are we going to do?" Storm looked worried.

"I have also tracked a few more mutants that Magneto could be targeting," continued Xavier, "First thing tomorrow, we will be going to find them."

"Shouldn't we start today?" questioned Storm.

"Magneto will be busy getting his new recruit settled," assured Xavier, "We'll have the rest of today to get ready."

Storm watched as he rode down the hall on his wheelchair. She wasn't sure if it was a good idea to wait a day before searching out the other mutants. The professor had said they could wait. She relaxed a little. She walked back into the room.

The day passed quickly and Bobby soon found himself saying goodnight to Rogue and walking to his room. He got into bed but didn't have the chance to close his eyes and go to sleep.

"Whoa, dude, who are you?!" exclaimed Allen from his bunk.

Bobby recognized the tiny voice of Bear.

"I is asweep," Bear explained and began to let out false snores.

Allen wasn't exactly the brightest guy around.

"Dude, there's a SWEEP on my pillow!"

Bobby rolled his eyes and flipped himself so that he was facing the wall. He hoped he wouldn't have to wake up to music the next day.

Unfortunately, Bobby woke up early anyway. Bobby listened closely. He couldn't hear any music. He sat up and looked over at Ruben's bunk. Ruben had obviously gotten up early again because his bed was empty. Bobby checked his clock and decided to go back to sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile, Ruben was walking around the halls with his headphones hanging around his neck. As always, they were blasting the parodies of Weird Al Yankovic. The halls were still extremely dark. This wasn't a problem for Ruben. People didn't call him Flash for nothing. Ruben's mutation allowed him to glow in the dark and also make exceptionally bright flashes of light. Ruben thought Flash was kind of a stupid name, but he couldn't think of a better one. Ruben continued down the hallway. A brown-haired boy suddenly appeared in front of one of the doors.

"Hello!" said Shawn Kerr softly. Ruben jumped.

"What are you doing out here?" Ruben asked.

"You're looking mighty suspicious yourself," Shawn said, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm just walking," whispered Ruben, "Where's Aaron?"

As if he was on cue, a small gecko crawled out from under the door and transformed into Shawn's twin, Aaron.

"Hello, Sunshine," he said to Ruben and then turned to Shawn, "We were right, Shawn, this is the lovers' suite."

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Ruben, confused.

"Not so loud, Light Bulb," whispered Aaron, "We don't want anyone to wake up and see us in action."

"Actually," explained Shawn, "there isn't going to be much action until they wake up."

"Let's hear the details, then," said Ruben quietly.

"Well," began Shawn, "the happy couple are asleep in their room..."

"Who's the 'happy couple'?" asked Ruben.

"I guess he's not as bright as he looks," remarked Aaron.

"Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers," said Shawn, "Where was I?"

"We've been watching this room all week," said Aaron, "We've found that Dr. Grey always gets up first."

"Oh, yeah," whispered Shawn, "Aaron has just conveniently finished putting together our little trap."

"We hung a bucket of Mr. Kamon's lasagna above Mr. Summers' bed," snickered Aaron.

"When Dr. Grey opens the door, the bucket will..." Shawn stopped to give a false sob, "... dump its saucy contents on Mr. Summers."

"Dr. Grey doesn't get out of it, though," continued Aaron, "We've set up a slingshot to fling a batch of sticky, old meatballs towards the doorway."

"And guess who's at the doorway," finished Shawn, "We're going to breakfast early to check out the results,"

A door nearby creaked open a little bit. Shawn disappeared and Aaron became a cockroach. Ruben couldn't do anything except to shut off his Discman. He stared at the partially open door, his eyes wide with horror. The door opened a little wider. Ruben saw four pairs of eyes staring at him. The eyes belonged to four girls. Ruben knew he had at least seen all four of them. He didn't know all their names though. He recognized Amara Aquilla among them. One girl had bright red hair. He remembered a few people who called her Siryn. He didn't know the last two at all. One was blonde and the other's red hair was slightly darker than Siryn's. Ruben felt like he had been their forever when they closed the door. Shawn reappeared and Aaron transformed back into himself.

"Dr. Grey will probably wake up soon," said Aaron hurriedly, "Let's get breakfast!"

They walked to the Meal Room, got their breakfast and sat down with Bobby and Rogue. A few minutes later Sam Guthrie sat down with them.

"Keep a good watch for teachers," hinted Shawn.

"Why?" asked Bobby.

"Don't be impatient, Frosty," said Aaron, "We don't want to give anything away yet."

Amara Aquilla sat down next to Rogue with her breakfast. The twins looked at each other.

"What were you doing by Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers' room, Ruben?" Amara asked.

"Don't give him all the credit!" interrupted Aaron.

"Yeah, he just showed up while _we_ were working," protested Shawn.

"It's true," said Ruben, "They were doing the dirty work."

"What dirty work?" asked Rogue suspiciously. Rogue didn't get an explanation because Jean Grey walked into the Meal Room.

"Just act casual," said Shawn quickly.

As Jean passed their table, Shawn snorted with laughter and Aaron pretended to drop his fork so that he could laugh under the table. Ruben chuckled. The humor didn't kick in for the rest of them until the situation sank in. Jean walked up to Mr. Kamon's counter. The whole Meal Room could now see the meatballs fixed to the back of Jean's shirt. She didn't seem to notice the laughter around her. She got her breakfast and walked back towards the exit to the Meal Room.

"Hey, Dr. Grey, where's Mr. Summers?" asked Aaron innocently.

"He said something about washing his hair when I left," Jean said.

As soon as she was out of earshot, the twins burst out laughing.

"What's this bit about Mr. Summers?" asked Sam.

"Let's just say he had breakfast **_in_** bed," said Shawn.

After breakfast, an announcement was made.

"There will be no classes today," declared Storm, "Keep yourselves occupied but don't leave the grounds."

"Perfect," Shawn said enthusiastically, "We can go work on our next prank,"

"See you guys later," called Aaron as the twins walked off.

Kitty Pryde, Kurt Wagner, Louis Shultz, and a girl that none of them knew walked towards the rest of them. Ruben recognized her as the red-haired girl who was among the four girls who saw him in the hallway.

"Hi, guys!" greeted Kitty cheerfully, "it's, like, totally great that we don't have classes today!"

"I don't think I know all of you," said Bobby.

"Well, this is Kurt Wagner," Kitty said sarcastically.

"I know who he is," said Bobby.

"This is Louis Shultz," Kitty continued, "some people call him Redwood."

"What's that mean?" asked Sam.

Louis smiled. "Watch," he said. Everyone watched as a large flower grew out of the top of his head.

"It's pretty," said Amara.

"You can grow flowers on your head?" asked Ruben, who thought it was kind of pathetic.

"Let me explain," said Louis, "I can transform into any type of plant."

"OK, that makes more sense," said Ruben.

"And this is...," Kitty began.

"That's Sarah Weidman," interrupted Amara Aquilla.

"Hi, I'm Ruben!" Ruben blurted, "That's Bobby, Rogue, Sam, and I guess you already know Amara."

"Hi," Sarah said shyly.

"Why don't we go find something to do?" Bobby suggested.

They all decided to go to the Danger Room. They were almost there when Sam turned the corner and walked into Evan Daniels. Everyone stopped. Evan wasn't the only one in the hallway. Standing behind him were eight more people. Ray Crisp had been talking to Evan at the time. Allen Orris had been discussing surfing tips to a tall boy with long, curly hair and a tough-looking guy whose hair had been turned into little spikes that formed a line through the middle of his head. Nearby, a small huddle of people, containing Roberto Da Costa, Rahne Sinclair, Jubilation Lee (Jubilee), Travis Cooper, and Melanie Seaton, were chatting about nothing in particular.

"Hey, watch where you're going, _Cannonball_," said Evan angrily.

"Sorry," Sam attempted to apologize, "I couldn't see you around the corner."

"Why are you guys walking around here anyway," asked Ray.

"We were going to the Danger Room," explained Bobby.

"Don't bother," said Travis, "It's closed. The teachers probably didn't want us messing it up while they were gone."

"You mean they're not here?" asked Kurt in surprise.

"What else would it mean?" Ray scowled.

"Why did they leave?" asked Rogue.

"I heard them talking about finding a mutant," said Travis, "That's why we don't have classes today."

"They should have let us come," muttered Bobby.

"Dude," said Allen obviously, "If they wanted us to come they would have asked."

"I think he probably knows that," Roberto responded to Allen's rather stupid comment.

"Dude, are you saying I'm stupid?" challenged Allen.

"Do you want to settle this outside?" Roberto shot back.

Ruben chuckled, "You know you only want to fight outside because you're solar-powered."

"Ruben, don't make it worse," Rogue started.

"I think he's got a point," Ray joined in, "Why can't you settle this _inside_?"

Roberto had reached his limit. He jumped on top of Ray and they both fell to the floor. Ray, who could use his power inside, shot a bolt of electricity into Roberto. Roberto rolled over backward. Suddenly, Rahne's red hair began to spread and she bent down on her hands and knees. Ray looked up but he wasn't quick enough. Rahne had transformed into a large, red wolf. She leaped and tackled Ray to the ground.

Ray's hands began to glow blue again. Before he could electrocute Rahne, Kurt appeared over top of her. He quickly took hold of her and they both disappeared with a noise that sounded like '_Bamf_.' They reappeared behind Allen. Ray was furious. He got up and turned to face Allen. As if it was all Allen's fault he shot blue bolts of electricity towards him. Unfortunately for him, in his rage, he didn't have enough control over the bolts. They missed Allen completely, but hit the guy with the spiked hair.

"Dude, Max, he totally didn't mean to do that," Allen said quickly.

It was too late. The big guy called Max charged Ray. Max's huge fist hurtled towards Ray. Ray ducked to the right and Max's fist slammed into the wall. The wall was dented, but only for a moment. As Max's hand gripped the wall, the dent began to melt. Max pushed Evan out of the way and charged Ray again. In an effort to stop the fight, Louis's fingers extended to form vines and wrapped around Max's legs. Max fell to the ground. Louis's attempt failed completely. Max got up angrier than before and turned to face Louis. Evan had also lost his temper. As Max charged Louis, Evan's hands sprouted long spikes.

This triggered another reaction. Three people attempted to keep Evan from stabbing Max. Jubilee sent small sparks of light in Evan's direction. At the same time Amara had shot two balls of fire towards Evan. Ruben had also tried to help. His body suddenly became a silhouette of bright light. The light quickly spread throughout the hallway. Temporarily blinded, Evan stopped. The small sparks and fireballs on the other hand, kept going. They collided making a large explosion which sent everyone flying backward. Max, who wore sunglasses, wasn't affected as much by Ruben's flash of light. After the explosion, he simply got up and continued moving towards Louis. Melanie had seen this coming. She whipped her blonde hair back and began to glow. She suddenly shrunk into a wisp of sparkling, gold mist and headed for Max. The mist entered Max's ear. Max stopped. He looked over at Sam.

"Knock me out," Max said.

"What?!" Sam said incredulously.

"Knock me out so that I won't hurt anyone," Max said.

"OK, if you really want me to," said Sam hesitantly. His legs instantly became hidden by a tornado-like vortex which propelled him towards Max. Sam rammed into Max's head. At the same time, the gold mist exited Max's head and turned back into Melanie. Max slumped to the floor. Everyone turned when someone else walked around the corner. Ben Flemming and Peter Rasputin stared at the havoc that had spread throughout the hallway. The melting dent had become a hole in the wall and there were scorch marks everywhere from the explosion.

"What have you guys been doing?" Ben asked incredulously.

"Um, there was, like, a big, like...," Kitty stammered.

"There was kind of a little, squabble," said Bobby.

"A _little_ squabble?" Peter repeated.

All the students (that were conscious) looked around at each other and at the destruction on the walls.

"Just wait until the teachers find out about this," Peter said.

"Dude, Kyle," Allen said quietly to the tall boy next to him, "I think we're totally busted."


	3. Magneto's Deception

Disclaimer: Do I really have to tell everyone that I don't own the X-Men? Doesn't the world already know the truth? I DON'T OWN THEM! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout and make a big fuss. Snarf. (You'll be hearing this sacred word a lot in my presence). Anyway, this is the chapter where. FOOLED YOU!!!!!!! You thought I was going to tell you what happened. WELL, YOU WERE WRONG!!! Don't be lazy. Just read. And enjoy. If you don't enjoy, then you're just wasting your time. That doesn't mean don't read it though. I'm just rambling. I'll stop.

* * *

Brad Kilburne looked around the Brotherhood's headquarters. It sure didn't look like paradise, but it looked alright. He saw quite a few mutants scattered around the room. 

"Pietro!" Magneto called across the room, "Locust!"

A blur shot across the room to halt in front of Brad. He was rather thin and had silvery hair.

"I'm Pietro," he said quickly, "also known as Quicksilver."

Another strange character scuttled up to them. He was crouching on the ground and seemed to have a permanent evil grin on his face.

"Dean Palmer," he said as he held out his hand, "but everyone calls me Locust."

"Show Brad where he will be sleeping," said Magneto.

"Right, follow me," instructed Pietro.

Pietro led him to one side of the huge room he was in. There were many doors lined up on the wall.

"You sleep in room 8K," Locust pointed to one of the doors, "Nate sleeps here too."

"Come on," said Pietro, "We'll introduce you to everyone."

They walked over to a large table where a bunch of people were playing cards.

"Hold it, Remy," said Pietro, "Don't deal yet."

One of the guys looked over at them.

"What do you want?" he asked as he stared at them through red eyes.

"Just giving some introductions," said Pietro, "Now, let me begin. The dealer is Remy LeBeau or Gambit, to his right we have your roommate, Nate Coyler or Pillbug, the tub of lard to his right is Freddy Dukes or Blob, moving along to the other end of the table is our pasty friend Ralph Smith or as you may have guessed, Paste, where was I, oh yeah, to his right you see the disturbing one called Lance Alvers or Avalanche and finally, I believe you already met Todd or Toad."

Brad stared at Pietro, amazed. Pietro hadn't taken a breath throughout the whole set of introductions.

"This is Brad Kilburne or Zombie," finished Pietro with a bow, "You may continue."

"Oh, may I?" asked Gambit sarcastically.

Brad followed Pietro and Locust to another place in the middle of the room. There was an assortment of armchairs. All of them had chunks missing and a few had springs popping out of the sides. The armchairs were in an arc around a TV. Pietro snatched the remote from the armchair closest to him and shut the TV off. Everyone in the armchairs turned to look at Pietro. Most of them gave him dirty looks.

"Excuse me, Hooded Brothers," Pietro began again, "It's time to meet new people."

"Shut up, Pietro," mumbled a guy with light brown hair.

"Don't burn your marshmallows," said Pietro, "how should I begin, ah, yes, the impudent little brat on the left end is John Allerdyce or Pyro, to his right is your good friend Sabretooth, moving to your right the grumpy-looking guy is Dan Rivers or Hammerhead, nasty temper they've got, oh, right, next we have a bad dream, literally, although he's called Steve Lennox or Nightmare, by the way what's with that purple hair?, oh, and at the other end, the winged, needlenose guy with the goggley glasses is Eddie Sullivan or Mosquito, parenthetically this is Brad Kilburne or Zombie."

Pietro tossed the remote to Sabretooth who turned the TV back on.

"I hate this show," said Mosquito in a nasal sounding English accent.

"Don't fret, mate," said Pyro in an Australian accent, "the show's almost over, anyway."

"Sabretooth, Gambit, Mystique, Massacre," Magneto called from the exit to the headquarters.

The four mutants approached Magneto from different sides.

"It is time to watch Charles and his feeble attempt to save the mutant he is looking for,"

"I got a question about that," said Massacre in a gangster voice, "Won't he get there before us and get the mutant so that you can't recruit it?"

"Charles thinks that I want to recruit the mutant that he is looking for," Magneto said with a smirk, "Charles is wasting his time. His target is slightly insane. It would be too difficult to have someone like that in the Brotherhood."

When he was finished explaining, Magneto gestured for his four, highest-ranking mutants to follow him.

* * *

The Blackbird landed in a clearing a short way from its destination. Cyclops exited the jet and looked around.

"Looks like the coast is clear," he called to the jet.

Jean Grey followed by Logan and Storm walked down the ramp of the jet.

"Find the mutant and bring him back to the jet," instructed Professor Xavier from the top of the ramp, "Tom will stay with me."

An extremely tall mutant with huge hands stood next to Xavier. He cracked his knuckles as if to scare any spies away. The other four mutants set off towards their destination. Eventually, they came to a large cave with half of a torn banner on the top that said 'Welcome to the Grand Ope'. The banner was ripped at 'Ope'.

"I guess he's in there," suggested Cyclops.

"Good thinking, genius," remarked Logan.

"Don't start with that," said Jean.

"Come on, let's go in," said Storm.

The inside of the cave was full of all sorts of strange things. Cyclops picked up an old toaster while Jean examined a silver statue of a squirrel.

"You think he has enough stuff?" asked Logan as he pulled a string of Christmas lights out from under a hot pink bowling ball and a towel rack.

"Wait," said Storm, "Listen."

The sound of faint footsteps was getting louder from inside the cavern.

"Hello?" called Jean. The footsteps stopped.

"Who could it be?" said a slightly raspy voice to itself, "Never gets visitors,"

They watched as a shadowy figure crawled into view on the wall. It jumped off of the wall and landed in front of Cyclops. The figure was wearing a huge, unbuttoned overcoat with lots of pockets. What little light came from outside the cave showed that the man had shadows under his eyes and shoulder length hair. A long, rat tail protruded from behind him.

"Mine!" he snapped and snatched the toaster from Cyclops' hands.

"Sir, we need to talk to you," Jean started.

"Touching my toast maker," said the strange man, stroking the toaster, "rude snobbies coming to loot Brine's mansion, up to no good."

"He's insane," said Cyclops, astounded.

"Can you tell us your name?" Jean asked slowly. Brine threw the toaster aside and picked up a doorknob.

"Slippy knobbles this is," he said, apparently forgetting they were there.

"What is your name?" Jean repeated. Brine looked at them as if they had just come in.

"What do you want from poor Brine?" he said mournfully, "Brine has stole nothing from nobody."

"We want to know your name," Jean said for the third time.

"Brine," he said, "Brine Crillow."

"Brine?" said Logan, rudely.

"No!" snapped Brine, "BRINE!"

Logan gave him a very strange look.

"Brian?" asked Jean, who had simply read his mind.

"Yes," the creature said smiling, "Brine."

"I think we came after the wrong mutant," said Cyclops.

"He's like a packrat," said Logan, looking around again.

"What?" Brian exclaimed, "What is you calling Brine? Packing Rat? Brine likes it!"

"We've come to help you," said Jean.

"Help what?" asked Packrat as he uncovered an old accordion, "Brine is in no troubles."

"Yes you are," said Jean, "There is a mutant called Magneto coming to take you to his lair."

Packrat smiled again revealing pointed teeth, "That is nonsenseness. Nobody can find Brine's hidden castle."

Cyclops looked around as if to make sure it wasn't a castle. Logan snorted. Packrat began looking at a butterfly net with a long bamboo handle.

"Packrat," said Storm seriously, "You must come back with us or you could get dreadfully hurt."

"Aha!" Packrat shouted, "You are plotting to hurt poor Brine!"

"No, no," said Jean quickly as Packrat armed himself with a boomerang, a broken dart, and a spatula, "We want to save you from the person who wants to hurt you."

Packrat looked at Logan and held the spatula in his tail threateningly. Jean noticed this quickly.

"No, Logan doesn't want to hurt you," she said reassuringly, "He is our friend."

"How about this,_ Brine_," said Logan, "You can bring all your, uh, treasures with you."

"Thinks about this Brine must," Packrat said, "Brine gets to keep all his treasures, you says?"

"Yes," assured Jean.

"Brine accepts your wonderfulous offer!" Packrat said excitedly, "But first you must let Brine go packratting all his treasures!"

"Was that really a good idea?" asked Cyclops as he watched Packrat stuff a hamster wheel and a Cheerios box full of marbles into an old suitcase.

"This was where Professor Xavier sent us," Jean said, "He wouldn't have sent us here if he didn't want to save this mutant."

Everyone helped carry Packrat's piles of "treasures" to the Blackbird. They loaded it all into the cargo area and walked up the ramp.

"We've had a little visit," said Xavier as they entered and Packrat looked around.

"From who?" asked Storm suspiciously.

"Magneto," said Xavier.

Cyclops and Jean exchanged looks while Storm gasped and Logan mumbled something to himself. Packrat just sniffed one of the seats.

"Magneto has informed me that the mutant you have acquired is not one of his targets," Xavier explained.

"I knew it!" raged Logan, "We just gave Magneto a day off."

"Calm down, Logan," warned Xavier, "My feelings tell me that Packrat is not completely useless."

"So what do we do now?" asked Cyclops.

"I believe Magneto will be going after another mutant tomorrow," said Charles, "We must go back to the Institute so that I can search for him with Cerebro."

"The sooner the better," mumbled Logan.

* * *

Lance Alvers dealt another hand in the absence of Gambit. Brad had joined their game.

"Agh!" Toad shouted, "I never get good cards! I fold! No! Wait! I quit!"

Toad left the table in a fury to go watch TV.

"I bet five bucks," said Lance as if Toad was never there.

"I'll see your five bucks," Pillbug said in an annoying tour guide voice, "And I'll raise you five more."

"I fold," said Blob through a mouthful of pizza.

"Same here," said Paste, "I don't have that kind of money,"

"Then why do you play?" asked Lance.

"Uh," Paste frowned.

"How about you Zombie?" Lance asked Brad, "Are you in?"

"No," said Brad.

"Well, I'm in," said Lance proudly, "I'm not afraid to put my money at risk."

Pillbug snickered as he showed Lance a straight flush. Everyone else but Lance also had a nice laugh. Pillbug's winning hand had made Lance's previous statement sound rather stupid.

"Unless you want to waste some more of your money," Pillbug said, "I'm going to bed."

No one else wanted to _waste_ anymore money so they all walked to their rooms.

"Don't even think about robbing me," threatened Pillbug in his terribly annoying voice, "or I'll make sure you get permanent brain damage."

Brad was pretty sure Pillbug wasn't kidding. He didn't want to rob Pillbug in the first place. Brad rolled over in bed. It was surprisingly comfortable. He figured the beds were probably stolen. It didn't matter to him, though. He fell asleep.


	4. Photon

Disclaimer: I'm so sorry that I haven't posted a new chapter for a while. Not that it matters much cause no one's reading it!!!!! But I'm not mad. Oh, by the way I must recognize my only two reviewers. Pyrotic and BobbyD12! Yes! That's right! Only two reviewers. Really makes you want to read it, huh? Anyway, I'm rambling so if someone's actually reading this, enjoy this amazing chapter. Ha.

* * *

Everyone who had been found in the damaged hallway had been given an extreme amount of extra homework. Travis, Allen, Bobby, Kitty, Sarah and Kyle were getting the homework too, although a little unfairly because they hadn't done anything during the fight. Allen and Kitty were the only ones who complained, though.

"I, like, didn't do anything wrong," she was saying as they ate dinner, "I totally shouldn't have to do this extra work."

"Dude, you're totally right," Allen agreed, "I'm getting work because I almost got deep fried."

Shawn and Aaron joined the large group halfway through dinner.

"Hi guys," said Aaron as he sat down next to Ray, "We hear that you got extra work, you violent brutes, you."

"The truth is," said Shawn, "Dr. Grey read our minds and found out that we were responsible for the food fiasco in their room."

"Yeah," said Aaron, "They gave _us_ extra work, too."

Since it was a Friday, the students had the entire Saturday to finish their homework. They had no idea that the Blackbird had left again that night to find another mutant.

* * *

"So," said Logan from behind the pilot's seat of the Blackbird, "Do we have the _right_ mutant this time?"

"Shut up, Logan," said Cyclops.

"I believe the mutant we are looking for is actually one of Magneto's targets," said Xavier.

"We're almost there," announced Storm.

They landed the plane in a clearing surrounded by large piles of rock and lowered the ramp. Once again, Logan, Cyclops, Storm, and Jean walked down the ramp.

"Wait," said Xavier, "Scott, open the storage area."

Cyclops did as he was told, although he was rather confused.

"What are you doing in here?!" he yelled as he opened the storage area door.

Packrat smiled.

"Brine couldn't leave his precious treasures," he said.

"Wait a minute," said Cyclops as he noticed a butterfly on Packrat's tail, "AARON!"

The butterfly's wings disappeared as it turned into Aaron.

"Hi," he said cheerfully, "You know, we, I mean, I decided to take Brine with us, I mean, me. It wasn't his fault."

"Let me guess," said Cyclops, "Shawn is blending in with Packrat's junk, isn't he?"

"Not junk," said Packrat while Shawn came into view.

"Take them with you," said Xavier.

"But," started Cyclops.

"They will be useful, Scott," assured Xavier.

"Fine," said Cyclops, irritated, "Follow me."

They moved through the forest of rocks with Cyclops in the lead and Logan at the rear.

"Stay quiet," said Jean, "I think we're getting close."

"Close what?" asked Packrat.

"Stop," said Cyclops very quietly, "We found him."

A man was crouching next to one of the large piles of rock. Something unseen was making a high-pitched buzzing noise.

"Careful," said Cyclops, "He may be armed."

"Ha!" said Packrat loudly, "He _do_ have arms!"

The sudden outburst took the man by surprise and he jumped. The man spun around as Cyclops attempted to hide everyone. Where the man's left hand should have been, there was a small, electric drill.

"Who goes there?!" the man shouted, "Answer me!"

Cyclops stood up. The man faced him and his drill spun ominously.

"Who are you?" the man asked, suspiciously, "What do you want?"

"Let me explain," Cyclops began, "I have been sent from Professor Xavier's school for the gifted. A very powerful mutant is coming to try to recruit you to his mutant force called the Brotherhood. We have come to see that you don't give in to his offer."

The man looked to his right. Cyclops looked to where he was staring. The man called Tom, who had been Xavier's bodyguard the previous night, was approaching the man with the drill.

"Wait," called Cyclops, "Piledriver, don't do anything."

Piledriver paid no attention to Cyclops and walked up to the man who stared up into Piledriver's gray eyes. Piledriver's huge hand reached out and grabbed the man by the back of his coat.

"Liar!" the man yelled, "Assassins!"

The man swung his drill extremely close to Piledriver's face making the huge hand drop the man to the ground. Cyclops watched as Piledriver backed away into the shadows. He seemed to be shrinking. His skin turned blue.

"Hey!" shouted Cyclops as the shadowed form of Mystique ran from where Piledriver had been moments before.

"Scott, look out!" yelled Jean from behind him.

Cyclops looked back towards the other man. The man's hands were spinning around at a tremendous speed so that they looked like blurs. The blurs got larger. Suddenly they stopped. The man's hands had become large triple-barrel firearms. As if this wasn't enough the rest of the mans body became a blur and stopped. The X-Men stared horrified at the robotic artillery system that the man had become. This had happened in less than twenty seconds.

"You will pay for your filthy lies," the man said in a robotic voice and began shooting glowing, green balls of light at them from the triple-barrel guns.

"Split up!" yelled Cyclops as he dodged one of the flying, green balls. It hit the large rock behind him, destroying most of it. Instead of avoiding them, Packrat scuttled around trying to catch the "pretty lights." Cyclops turned as he saw more shadowy figures appear on the rocks. Apparently the man saw them too, because he turned to look at them.

"It's Magneto!" shouted Storm.

Sure enough, the center figure stepped out into the moonlight. The other four figures also stepped into where they could be seen. One had long hair and claws. The one next to him wore a long trench coat and carried a long pole. On Magneto's other side a shady looking guy stood clutching one of the many daggers in his belt. Mystique stood next to him with a cruel smile on her face.

"Photon!" Magneto said loudly, "Stop firing! I have an offer for you."

"How do I know you're not lying like everyone else?" the man with guns said.

"Listen to me, Photon," said Magneto, "Join me and you will be able to destroy all the liars in this world."

"_That's_ a lie!" Shawn shouted at Magneto, "If he were to destroy all the liars, he would have killed your whole team!"

"That's a very good point!" agreed Aaron.

"If you join me," continued Magneto, "You will be joining one of the most powerful mutant organizations there is."

Suddenly, Packrat let out a terribly high-pitched screech of anger. Packrat had just noticed the guy with the belt of daggers. Before anyone could do anything Packrat had leapt from the ground. He slammed into the man with the daggers.

"Do what you must, Massacre," Magneto told the man, "Just get rid of him."

Massacre had landed on his back and the dagger he had been holding slid into the darkness. Packrat flipped him over and pounded his face into the dirt. The X-Men watched as Massacre's arm moved out from under him and his fingers grabbed Packrat by the throat. Massacre's arm was in a now in a contorted position, but he didn't seem to be feeling any pain. As if he wasn't contorted enough, he let go of Packrat's neck while at the same time bending his legs backward so that they rested between himself and Packrat. Suddenly, his legs shot upward kicking Packrat with a terrible impact which launched him back towards Logan. Logan caught him, but immediately put him down on the ground. Cyclops looked over at Photon to see a strange looking weapon swing out from his back. Before the artillery could be used, however, Cyclops fired an optic blast which caught Photon in the chest, knocking him backward into a large pile of loose rocks. The rocks crumbled over Photon's head and buried him in rubble.

"Gambit," said Magneto, "Keep them busy,"

The man with the trench coat jumped down from the rocks, drawing a deck of cards from an inside pocket. He drew an ace of hearts from the top of the deck as Sabretooth went to uncover the unconscious Photon. The ace of hearts began to glow.

"Let me express my love for you, mes amis," Gambit said as he threw the glowing ace of hearts at them.

"Get out of here!" Cyclops yelled to the rest of his team.

No sooner had they scattered when the ace of hearts was enveloped in the flame of its own explosion. The X-Men ran towards the Blackbird at full speed followed by the explosions of flying playing cards. They rushed up the ramp and entered the jet as they heard Gambit's voice in the distance yelling, "Wait, let me deal you another hand!"

"Take off!" yelled Cyclops as Xavier and the real Piledriver turned to look at them. Everyone quickly buckled their seatbelts while the jet began to rise.

"Well," said Logan, "It looks like we failed again."

"The first time wasn't a failure, Logan," Xavier reminded him.

"Yeah, whatever," said Logan, "If we keep this up, fighting Magneto will be like having carrots attack polar bears in the winter."

"That's a good expression," said Aaron as Packrat looked up at the sound of the word 'carrots'.

"Yeah," agreed Shawn, "We'll have to remember that one."

They were soon landing at the Institute.

"Hey, you two," Cyclops grabbed the twins' shoulders, "no one else hears about this, **_right_**?"

"Uh, right," they said in unison. Cyclops gave them a suspicious look and continued inside the Institute.

When everyone, but Packrat was out of earshot Shawn said, "Like we're really going to keep tonight a secret."

"I'm surprised Summers believed us," said Aaron.

"We'll tell everyone in the morning," said Shawn, "Let's get to bed."

"We'll need all the energy possible for the homework," Aaron nodded.

* * *

The next morning, Shawn and Aaron gathered all their fellow classmates for breakfast.

"I know something you don't know," Aaron taunted, dancing around Bobby.

"So what?" said Ray.

"Dude, you always know something we don't know," Allen said.

"Speak for yourself," muttered Roberto.

"Well," Shawn said in mock sadness, "I guess we'll have to keep our little secret to ourselves."

"Dude, no, tell us!" Allen pleaded.

"Ok!" said Aaron happily and immediately squeezed in between Bobby and Sam.

Shawn pushed in between Amara and the tall boy called Kyle.

"Where shall I begin?" said Shawn.

"Get to the point," said Ray, grumpily.

"Aww, didn't Zeus get enough sleep?" asked Aaron mockingly.

"Well, last night, while you were all doing your homework," Shawn began as Ray glared at Aaron, "Aaron and yours truly took that crazy new guy, Brine, or whatever his name is, into the cargo area of the Blackbird."

"We flew somewhere and I guess the Professor knew we were there and Summers opened the door," continued Aaron, "They took us along and we got to this place where some guy was drilling rocks."

"Brine said something real loud and the guy turned around," Shawn picked up from where Aaron left off. "Summers tried to tell the guy why we were there, but Mr. Fulke came out of nowhere and picked the guy up. The guy's hand was a drill, so he swung it in Mr. Fulke's face. Mr. Fulke dropped him and turned into some blue lady."

"Mystique!" Bobby exclaimed loudly. Everyone stared at him.

"Who's telling this story you or me?" said Shawn.

"Mystique, blue lady, same thing," Aaron began again, "Anyway, the drill guy turned into some robot with big guns on his hands. He started shooting lasers or something at us until Magneto appeared on a rock with some other people."

"Some hairy guy, some guy with a big coat and exploding cards, nice trick I thought, some contortionist with daggers, and the blue lady," explained Shawn.

"Sabretooth, Gambit, and Mystique!" shouted Bobby. Everyone stared at him again.

"What about the dagger guy?" Ray asked Bobby sarcastically, "Don't you know _his _name?"

"Where was I?" said Aaron, "Oh yeah, Magneto told the robot guy to join him and Shawn made a pretty good comment, something about the guy killing liars, I don't remember,"

"Brine got mad at the contortionist for some reason and jumped on him," Shawn said quickly to keep the story moving, "Brine had him until the dagger man contorted and kicked Brine away. Then I guess Summers lost his temper and shot the robot guy, I think Magneto called him Photoman or something, well, anyway, Photoman flew into a rock wall and all these rocks fell on him."

"Right," said Aaron, "Then, Gambino did you call him? Yeah, Gambino came after us saying he loved us or something while he threw cards that blew up. We ran for it and got on the plane."

"We flew away and got back here," finished Shawn proudly.

"How late did you stay up last night to think that one up?" asked Ray rudely.

"We wouldn't waste our time making up silly stories in the middle of the night," Aaron said, "How dumb do think we are?"

Ray started to say something, but Amara spoke first.

"Have we saved _any_ mutants from Magneto yet?" she said, disgusted.

"They saved Brine!" said Shawn.

"They call him Packrat," corrected Aaron.

"I like Brine better," said Shawn.

"According to your story," said Evan, "Packrat sounds like he's completely useless."

"Dude, he totally busted the contorter," said Allen apparently impressed by Packrat's attack.

"Still," said Amara seriously, "I think we need to get with the program if we're going to beat Magneto."

"We should all sneak in the cargo area," suggested Melanie.

"I like your thinking," Shawn complemented her, amazed, "If we took out all Brine's stuff, we could probably fit everyone."

"We can keep his stuff in our room," volunteered Aaron.

"No way!" said Roberto, "I want to sleep on a bed tonight, not a bunch of trash."

Aaron's eyes widened. Packrat had just popped up behind Roberto.

"Trash?!" he said furiously.

Shawn covered his ears. Bobby covered his eyes. Ruben chuckled and covered his mouth. Kitty giggled. Amara looked at Packrat with disgust. Aaron turned into a baboon and held his nose.

"_You're_ the trash!!!" Packrat screamed, pointing a skinny, clawed finger at Roberto.

Packrat scuttled away making angry rat noises. Roberto didn't look insulted at all. Shawn, Bobby, and Ruben uncovered their faces. Aaron transformed back into himself.

"I don't like him," said Rahne.

"What's not to like?" asked Shawn, "Just because he likes to collect things doesn't mean you should hate him."

Aaron rolled his eyes. "Shawn, follow me. There's something you need to know about this whole situation that you don't have a clue about."

"They're talking about **_you_**," said Ray to Roberto and Rahne nastily as Aaron escorted Shawn to another table.

"I, like, can't believe Shawn doesn't know that you two go out," said Kitty.

"He's a Kerr," said Bobby, "What do you expect?"

"Aaron knew about it," said Ruben, once again making everything more complicated.

"Dude, maybe animals understand humans better than humans understand themselves," Allen said.

"Allen, that sounded really intelligent, but it was really stupid," said Jubilee.

While Jubilee's comment sunk in, Aaron and Shawn returned, Shawn with an amazed look on his face.

"I never would have figured it out," said Shawn to himself.

"So," said Aaron, apparently glad that his talk with Shawn was over, "Why don't we meet at the Blackbird tomorrow to unpack,"

"We can't get in there," said Ray, "In case you haven't noticed, every room of importance is locked in this place."

"You forget who you're talking to," said Aaron, "There's no door Shawn and I can't get through, uh, well, besides the fact that Shawn seems to have lost his mind, poor fellow."

Shawn was still standing there muttering to himself, "How could I not have seen it before?"

"Um, right," said Aaron quickly, "I'd better get my unfortunate brother outside for some fresh air,"

The twins departed and everyone else got up to prepare for their classes. Later that night, Roberto followed Kyle into their room. The twins were already in bed. They hadn't heard them come in and were deep in discussion.

"What was that with Melanie Seaton this morning?" asked Aaron.

"Huh?" said Shawn rather quickly, "What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, _Camoman_!" said Aaron, "You were drooling all over her!"

"I wasn't drooling! I was giving her a compliment!" Shawn protested, "I didn't see _you_ making any moves! You were too busy staring at Bobby's lunch!"

Aaron didn't say anything. Shawn smiled triumphantly and drifted off to sleep. Aaron fell asleep too, but not as quickly.

"I wonder if they knew we were here," said Kyle, letting his dark hair down.

"Who cares," said Roberto, "I have something for blackmail if I need it."

Eventually Roberto and Kyle fell asleep along with the twins, Roberto smiling to himself.


	5. Nucleo's Battle

Disclaimer: This chapter is pretty long. Its got this great part where. I'm not going to tell you. You have to read it to find out. HA HA HA! Anyway, I've got some issues to cover. First of all, Diana, the reason that I state the obvious isn't because I think my readers are dumb. It's because I wouldn't understand my story if I didn't. I'M THE DUMMY!!!!!!!! Second on the agenda, I would like to thank all three of my reviewers and I apologize to BobbyD12 for not meeting your expectations on recognition. How do you want me to recognize you? I know! I'll tell a story about you. Once upon a time, there was a person named BobbyD12. BobbyD12 was reading a story on the internet and decided to review it. The author thanked BobbyD12 for reviewing, but BobbyD12 wasn't happy. BobbyD12 wanted more recognition. So BobbyD12 demanded that the author give more recognition. The author decided to tell a story about BobbyD12. BobbyD12 thought the story was annoying and beat the author up. Then BobbyD12 wrote a story. The End. How's that? Pretty good, huh? Oh, well. If I keep this up, I'll have a disclaimer as long as this chapter. Enjoy this at your own risk. disappears mysteriously Snarf!

* * *

Everyone turned around as Magneto entered with his usual four people. They would have gone back to what they were doing except that Magneto had brought a newcomer.

"Pietro!" Magneto called out, "Locust!"

Pietro shot over to Magneto's side while Locust scuttled more slowly, smiling sinisterly.

"Here we go again, mate." Pyro said to Mosquito who nodded. Sure enough, as soon as the newcomer was shown his room, Pietro shot over to the armchairs. No one was playing cards. Everyone was in an arc around the TV.

"Go away," muttered Lance.

"Now is that any way to welcome your new—," Pietro ducked as Blob hurled a taco at him.

"I'll begin then," Pietro scowled. He went through the introductions in a minute's time finishing with, "This is Jeff Telton, or Photon."

Everyone turned back to the TV. Blob pushed Pietro aside as he retrieved his precious taco.

"Short attention spans they've got," commented Photon, staring at Nightmare's dark purple hair, "What's with his hair anyway?"

"Oh, you mean old Mauve Mane over there," Pietro smirked, "He says it grew in naturally. Personally, I'd dye it or something. It's pretty repulsive, if you ask me."

"Oh, right," Photon said, eyeing Pietro's slick, white hair and wondering why Pietro didn't dye _his_ hair.

"You're just lucky you didn't get Toad for a roommate," Pietro said, "He reeks to high heaven. Oh, and Blob, you'd be scrunched up against the wall. He probably takes up the whole room. Well, I don't fancy your position either. Stuck with Pyro, you're more likely to wake up with third degree burns, than lose a poker game to Gambit."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Photon.

"Oh, sorry," said Pietro, "Let me slow down a little. Pyro likes to burn things. He burns things with fire. Fire can give you third degree burns. Pyro will more likely give you third degree burns, than you'll lose a poker game to Gambit."

"No," said Photon, a little irritated, "I mean about Gambit and poker."

"Oh, right," said Pietro, "Gambit likes to play cards. That's why he uses his power on mostly cards. Gambit can make stuff explode with his mind. Poker is a card game. The point of Poker is to...,"

"Is Gambit good at Poker?" asked Photon angrily.

"Of course Gambit's good at Poker!" Pietro shouted, "Are you crazy? I didn't say that in my expression before for nothing!"

Pietro shot away into one of the rooms on the far wall.

"Yes," said Locust, grinning villainously, "He's **_always_** like that."

"What's all this I hear about Pyro?" asked Photon, calming down.

Before Locust could answer, Pyro got up from his armchair. Photon and Locust watched as Pyro walked out the back door yelling, "Who wants to start a bonfire out back?!" No one seemed to want to start a bonfire with Pyro, or for that matter even hear what he had said. Smoke began to appear outside. Suddenly, the _bonfire_ expanded to form a huge burning scorpion.

"He's always making _fire art_," explained Locust over Pyro's hysterical laughter, "I like it though. Neat looking in my opinion."

Photon looked back at the group in the armchairs.

"I should have been a plumber," he thought to himself.

* * *

The students gathered outside the door to the Blackbird's room. Shawn was in the front telling Ray to, "Be patient. You can't rush a serious artist like Aaron." Ray just rolled his eyes and turned around to talk to Allen. Suddenly, the door slid open to reveal Aaron smiling gleefully.

"Where are we putting Packrat's stuff?" asked Sam.

"Dr. Grey gave him a room down the hall from here," said Aaron.

"Right," said Shawn, "Shall we begin?"

Aaron and Shawn did the honors of opening the cargo door. They each took an armful of Packrat's collection and started back down the hallway.

"Oops," Shawn said to Ruben as a plastic battle ax and a bright blue wig fell from the top of the pile he was carrying, "Can you get that?"

Ray scowled as he grabbed a woven basket full of multicolored golf balls. Roberto helped Rahne carry an electric orange trunk overflowing with old disposable cameras.

"This is disgusting!" exclaimed Amara. She had uncovered a pair of rotting toilet plungers. She kicked them towards Ruben.

"Maybe we should have brought gloves or something," said Ruben as he reluctantly picked up the plungers.

"There's nothing wrong with this stuff," said Shawn enthusiastically and to Amara's horror he snatched up a moldy banjo.

Aaron turned around and dropped the fungus covered chandelier he was carrying.

"Shawn!" he stuttered, "It's, it's, it's..."

"Spit it out, bro," Shawn was still examining the banjo, "What is it?"

"Summers!!" Aaron forced out. Shawn's banjo flew through the air and landed in an astonished, and slightly revolted Jubilee's arms.

"Uh, hey, Mr. Summers," shouted Shawn to Scott who was walking rapidly towards them, "We were just, uh, helping Brine unpack his stuff."

"He's not buying it, Shawn," said Aaron.

"He must have found out about our little storytime event yesterday!" Shawn looked around quickly, "Let's hide in the cargo area!"

"Oh, yeah," said Aaron sensibly, "That would save us for what, fifteen seconds?!"

"We could fly the jet away," suggested Shawn, hurriedly.

"That would let us live for six extra seconds before we crashed the thing!" Aaron rapped his brother on the head.

"Well, there's only one alternative," said Shawn pointing his finger at the air above them, "RUN!!!!!"

The rest of the students watched as Shawn dragged Aaron, who was staring around at the spot Shawn had been pointing, seeing, of course, absolutely nothing, out of the room.

"Keep unpacking!" Shawn was heard shouting from the hallway.

Everyone had finished unpacking around lunchtime.

"I can't believe we actually touched that stuff," said Amara, still sickened by the items that they had carried.

"Dude, you were the one who said to get in the program," said Allen.

"It's get _with_ the program," said Kurt.

"At least, we'll be able to go with them to save the mutants from Magneto," said Bobby looking on the bright side.

"How are we going to find out when their leaving?" asked Ruben, once again making things more difficult, "They're not going to tell us."

"Shut up, Ruben," said Ray giving him a dirty look.

"Shawn and Aaron can spy on Dr. Grey or something," said Melanie.

"If they survive Mr. Summers' rage," said Travis.

"We'll see them tonight," said Kyle gesturing toward Roberto.

"Yeah," Roberto nodded, "If they don't show up, then we'll assume that Mr. Summers has them hanging on his wall or something."

"That's gross," commented Amara.

"Lunch is over!" Mr. Kamon yelled from his counter, "Now GET OUT!"

Roberto walked into his room later that night to find the twins in their beds.

"Where have you guys been?" asked Roberto scornfully.

"Summers finally caught us when we tried to open a door," said Shawn.

"Unfortunately," Aaron continued, "We realized, way too late, that the door we were trying to get into had been glued shut by some prankster."

"Whoever did that sticky deed will dread the day we find out who they are," Shawn vowed.

"Yeah, right," said Roberto as he climbed into bed. He had a suspicion that the 'prankster' they were talking about were probably themselves.

* * *

Downstairs, a blue, furry man walked through the back door. He quickly moved down the hall with ape-like agility towards Professor Xavier's office. He burst through the door to find Xavier staring at him.

"Welcome back, Hank," Xavier greeted him.

"Thanks, Professor," Hank McCoy said, "I need to talk to you."

"I'll summon the rest of the X-Men," said Xavier.

Xavier and Hank were soon joined by Logan, Scott, Jean, Storm, and Tom Fulke.

"Hey, Beast, nice to see you again," said Scott.

"Same to you, Cyclops," Hank replied.

"Hank, what is it you wished to inform me of?" Xavier asked calmly.

"It's Magneto," said Hank, "He's found another mutant target."

"Who is it?" asked Storm.

"They referred to him as Nucleo," said Hank, "His power is similar to Gambit's, but much worse. The explosions he creates are catastrophic."

"When will Magneto be going after him?" asked Logan.

"I'm not entirely sure," said Hank, thoughtfully, "Sometime soon, I believe."

"Professor maybe we should take Peter and Ben with us," suggested Jean, "They're old enough to handle the situation."

"Good thinking, Jean," said Xavier, "I'll go track Nucleo with Cerebro. You can inform Peter and Ben of the mission, tomorrow."

"Good night, Professor," said Storm as she and the others left the room.

"Good night, Storm," said Xavier, and he turned to go to Cerebro's chamber.

* * *

The students awoke the next morning and went down to breakfast. They assembled at their usual table and began to talk amongst themselves.

"Hey, Rogue," said Bobby excitedly, "Did you know we're starting biology classes again? Mr. McCoy's back."

Hank McCoy was Bobby's favorite teacher.

"How'd you find out about it?" asked Rogue, "I haven't seen him."

"I passed him in the hallway," said Bobby, "He was talking to Mr. Summers."

"But I bet you don't know _what _they were talking about," Bobby turned around to see Shawn and Aaron standing behind him.

"Who cares what they were talking about," said Bobby.

"A bit forgetful aren't we?" Aaron said impatiently.

"They were talking about another mission to rescue a mutant," Shawn said, "Don't tell me you forgot why we unpacked all Brine's stuff."

"Of course not," said Bobby quickly.

"When are they going?" asked Amara.

"Tonight," said Aaron.

"How're we going to get in without anyone noticing?" asked Roberto.

"Keep your shirt on, Sunny," Aaron responded.

Ruben chuckled.

"Leave that part up to us," said Shawn, "All you have to do is hide in the Blackbird's room instead of going to bed. We'll distract anyone who's making sure nothing fishy's going on."

"I wish I could be as tricky as they are," Ruben said to Sarah who was sitting next to him, "The most I can do is look strange."

* * *

Everyone departed for their classes with the mission that night still in their heads. When that night finally came, the students hid themselves in the Blackbird's room. Scott walked in and checked the cargo area to see if anyone was inside. There was no one there. Satisfied, he began to walk towards the cockpit where Jean, Professor Xavier, Hank McCoy (Beast), Storm, Peter Rasputin, Logan, Tom Fulke (Piledriver), and Ben Flemming were waiting for him. Suddenly, he heard a crash behind him. He ran back to the entrance to the room to see Aaron and Shawn trying to force a chest of drawers back into the closet that it had fallen out of.

"What are you guys doing?" Scott asked them suspiciously.

"What are _you_ doing, Mr. Summers?" asked Aaron looking over his shoulder into the Blackbird's room to see the students sneaking into the cargo area.

"Don't give me that!" said Scott impatiently, "What are you up to?"

"Are you going on another mission?" Shawn asked innocently, "Can we come?"

"Of course not!" Scott said accusingly as Roberto helped Rahne into the cargo area and closed the door quietly, "You guys let out the secret last time."

"Fine," said Aaron, "We'll just stay here and look at the wall."

Scott raised his eyebrows and turned around and walked back towards the cockpit. As soon as Scott was inside the cockpit, the twins ran quietly to the cargo area and opened the door.

"Fasten your seatbelts," Aaron said to them all, "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Scott walked past the rest of the team towards the copilot's chair.

"Scott," Xavier said smiling, "I think you need to..."

"Not now, Professor," said Scott hurriedly, "We're late as it is."

"If you insist," said Xavier, looking at Jean. Jean smiled and looked at Scott while Xavier's voice in her head told her some interesting facts about the cargo area.

"We're almost there," said Storm from the pilot's seat.

Peter looked out the window. There was a lot of trees in this area. Peter tried to look through the trees to the ground below. He suddenly caught sight of a figure standing in a small clearing. He squinted so that he could see it better. The figure raised it's arms into the air. Peter was thrown back away from the window as the jet jerked sideways. Luckily their seatbelts were on, so they didn't fall onto the floor.

"What was that?" Ben asked from the seat across from Peter.

"It must be Magneto," Peter answered him, "I just saw someone down there raise his arms right when the jet twitched."

"What now, Professor?" asked Storm.

Xavier didn't answer. Jean looked over at him and entered his mind. He was making sure their _cargo_ was alright.

"Professor?" said Storm, a hint of worry in her voice, "Are you ok?"

"What?" Xavier opened his eyes, "Oh, yes."

"Should we land?" Storm asked him.

"Yes," answered Xavier, "Land a little ways from where Magneto tried to send us out of control."

"Right," Storm immediately began pressing a number of buttons and continued steering the jet.

They landed in another small clearing and let down the ramp.

"Scott, wait," Xavier said, while everyone else left the jet, "There's something I need to tell you about."

Jean walked to the cargo area door. The professor had told her telepathically to open it while Scott was still inside. She opened the door to find a large amount of their students sitting inside.

"Hi, Dr. Grey," said Shawn smiling, while the students got out, "Nice night for a ride, eh?"

Cyclops left the cockpit looking terribly annoyed. How could he have been so stupid? The twins had made that diversion for a reason. He sighed and tried to calm down. He didn't want to be responsible for any injuries that could be acquired by the students. He walked up the now large group.

"Lighten up, Summers," said Ray, watching Cyclops' expression, "You have a larger army now."

"Might as well take roll call," suggested Jean.

Beast cleared his throat, proudly. He knew all the names the students used in battle. In alphabetical order.

"OK," he began, "Just tell me if you're here if I call your code name. Berserker!"

"Right here," said Ray.

"Cannonball!"

"Here," said Sam.

"Colossus!"

Peter grunted.

"Daydream!"

"Over here," Melanie said from behind the twins.

Beast continued through the names: Flare (Travis), Flash (Ruben), Iceman (Bobby), Jubilee, Komodo (Kyle), Magma (Amara), Nightcrawler (Kurt), Ooze (Allen), Outlet (Ben), Quasar (Sarah), Redwood (Louis), Rogue, Shadowcat (Kitty), Shift (Aaron), Shroud (Shawn), Siryn, Spyke (Evan), Sunspot (Roberto), Volcano (Max), and Wolfsbane (Rahne).

"OK," Beast said, out of breath, "Let's move out."

The large group moved through the forest as silently as possible. Jean searched around with her mind for any unwelcome signs of life, but couldn't find any. Eventually, they came to a wall of trees that blocked a small slope. Beast climbed into one of the trees. Shift transformed into a crow and flew up into the same tree.

"Can you see what's going on?" asked Storm quietly.

"The members of the Brotherhood are scattered around this area," said Beast, "No sight of Magneto or Nucleo, though."

Everyone waited another ten minutes before Beast gave another report.

"There's still not much going on," he whispered, "The Brotherhood just seems to be waiting for something."

"They're waiting for Magneto to chase Nucleo to them so that they can ambush him," said Logan sniffing the air, "I can smell both Magneto and Nucleo. They'll be here any minute now."

"Wait!" Beast said suddenly.

Beast and Shift were the only ones who could see what was going on. A man wearing a long cloak burst through the trees into the sloped area. His long, silvery hair was tied back and from what was seen of him, it looked like his right eye was made of glass. The newcomer was soon followed by Magneto. This must have been some sort of signal because the entire Brotherhood stood up from their hiding places. The glass-eyed man stopped running.

"You can run no longer, Nucleo," said Magneto loudly, "It is time to surrender and join me."

"I will join no one!" Nucleo thundered, his glass eye shining in the moonlight, "I have no need to share my beliefs with anyone else!"

"You give me no choice," Magneto's voice rang out through the trees, "I will have to take you by force."

"That's our cue," said Logan. His adamantium claws slid from their sheaths inside his arms. He sliced down the wall of trees as Beast jumped back into the group and Shift landed on the ground and grew back into his original form. The nearest members of the Brotherhood looked up at them.

"It's the X-Men!" shouted Gambit.

"Neither of you shall take me without a fight!" Nucleo shouted, "Feel my wrath!"

"Heads up, people!" Beast warned as a thin, whip-like beam extended from Nucleo's pointer finger. The X-Men scattered just in time. The beam struck a nearby tree and with a deafening bang, the tree exploded, propelling burning bits of bark and wood through the air. As if that wasn't enough, the explosion engulfed a good number of other trees creating the beginning of a forest fire. Iceman acted quickly, freezing the burning trees before the inferno spread. He looked out over the sloped area and spotted a young guy with light brown hair.

"Rogue!" Iceman called, "Look! It's John!"

Rogue stared at Pyro with amazement. She remembered how John would always follow her and Bobby around. They hadn't really treated him much like a friend. That was probably the reason that he had joined the brotherhood in the first place.

"We have to talk to him," she said to Iceman.

"I'll try to get closer to him while we fight," Iceman replied.

Zombie and Toad looked up as Flare jumped down in front of them.

"You guys are ugly," Flare told them.

"Let's get him!" Toad yelled, offended.

Flare was ready. His hands began to give off a red glow. Just as Zombie and Toad were only five feet away, Flare launched a huge, glowing, red ball of luminosity towards them. Toad jumped quickly out of the way, but Zombie got the full blast of it. He flew backwards and landed on top of Sabretooth who threw him aside.

Pillbug curled up into a little ball. He was wearing an iron shell on his back. This gave the effect of him being a metal basketball when he rolled himself up. Pillbug began to roll forward at top speed towards Wolfsbane who had transformed into the red wolf and had latched her teeth onto Locust's leg. Sunspot turned around. He saw the iron ball hurtling towards Wolfsbane.

"Hey, Flash!" Sunspot bellowed.

"Hey what?" Flash turned to face Sunspot.

"Use your power!" Sunspot shouted back to him, "I need it!"

"Ah, right!" Flash yelled, catching on, "One solar ball of light, coming up!"

Flash glowed so brightly, that his features were no longer visible. Suddenly, the light expanded across the landscape in the blink of an eye. Sunspot smiled. This was just enough light for him to use his power. Sunspot also began to glow. He could feel his muscles strengthening very quickly. He turned back towards Wolfsbane. Luckily, Pillbug had been on the other side of the sloped area when he started, so he was almost three feet from his target. Sunspot jumped in front of him at the last possible moment. Pillbug slammed into Sunspot knocking him over, but sending the iron ball flying backward. Sunspot got up slowly and went to help Wolfsbane handle Locust, who was breathing deadly clouds of plague into the air.

Volcano had just lifted Paste into the air when the ground started to shake. Paste shrieked with pain. Volcano's hands were scorching his skin from the heat. Volcano dropped Paste as he fell to the dirt below. He looked up to see Lance Alvers (Avalanche) with his eyes rolled back into his head. Volcano stood up and charged Avalanche. Avalanche's eyes moved from the inside of his head to look at Volcano. Volcano grabbed Avalanche by the glass helmet he was wearing. The glass began to melt immediately. Volcano hurled Avalanche towards Quicksilver. Quicksilver easily avoided getting hit as he dashed away in a blur of blue and silver.

Meanwhile, Sabretooth had picked up Ooze by his throat and was attempting to strangle him. Instead of doing any damage, though, Ooze's throat just seemed to flow through Sabertooth's fingers. Sabretooth roared and launched Ooze at a tree. Ooze crashed into the tree, but his body just slid off of it and melted to the ground.

"Dude, being a ball of goo is so totally awesome," Ooze said, smiling.

Iceman and Rogue crept up behind Pyro. He had created a huge serpent out of flames and was making it chase after Redwood and Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler leapt on top of Redwood and they both disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"John!" Iceman yelled.

Pyro turned around and the serpent disappeared.

"Well if it isn't my _favorite_ people to hang out with," he said with a sarcastic smile, "So _nice _to see you again."

He shot two jets of flame from the flamethrowers concealed on the arms of his uniform. The flames grew into the form of the serpent again and surrounded Iceman and Rogue with its burning coils.

"Wait!" shouted Rogue, "John, we're your friends!"

Pyro threw his head back and laughed insanely, "You're no friends of mine! And you never will be!"

The coils of the blazing serpent slowly drew closer to Iceman and Rogue. They drew back from the heat, but the inferno was getting almost to close for them to move.

"John, stop!" Iceman yelled through the flames, but Pyro only laughed again. Suddenly, Cannonball flew from nowhere and smashed into Pyro knocking him off his feet. The serpent disappeared once again and Iceman and Rogue stood up again.

"Thanks, Cannonball," said Iceman.

"No problem," Cannonball replied, "Anytime."

Pyro picked himself up off the ground and looked around for Iceman and Rogue, but they weren't there anymore. He didn't care. They had never treated him as a friend before. He wasn't going to let them start now.

Jubilee had just ignited Gambit's trench coat with her sparking embers when Magma shouted a warning.

"Jubilee! Look out!"

Jubilee turned around to see Colossus in full armor holding a fallen tree in his right hand. She was confused. Wasn't Colossus with the X-Men? She dived out of the way as Colossus flung the tree at her. She looked up to see a sparkling, blue mist exit Colossus's ear. The mist took form and Jubilee realized that Colossus had been possessed by Nightmare. Nightmare dodged Colossus and started towards Jubilee with a menacing smile on his face.

Ooze and Komodo were deciding who to take on when Ooze looked over towards the scene with Jubilee.

"Dude, check it out!" Ooze said nervously, "We need to totally bust that guy!"

Komodo's long legs began to grow even longer. His knees bent backward. A long tail sprouted from in back of him. His head elongated to form a lizard's head, while his long hair retracted into his head. Reptilian skin spread over his body. His clothes had also changed. They had created an armor for his torso and shoulders. He bared his pointed teeth.

"Ok, dude, let's go," instructed Ooze.

Jubilee tried to get up to escape, but she only stumbled over a rock and fell backwards. She landed on something squishy. She looked over into Ooze's face.

"That was disgusting," Jubilee said to him, "But thanks."

"Dude, not a problem," he said as if this happened every day.

Nightmare began to transform into the blue mist. Komodo was too quick for him. His tail lashed out and sent Nightmare flying. Nightmare winced as his head cracked against a large stone embedded in the ground. The last thing he saw before darkness clouded his vision was a boy flickering into sight to attack Photon with the help of a large gorilla. They seemed to be protecting a blonde girl. A very familiar blonde girl.

Magma lobbed a fistful of flames at Toad. Toad hopped out of the way and aimed a jump kick at Magma. She moved quickly and instead, the force of Toad's kick snapped the nearest tree in half as if it was a toothpick. Toad whirled around angrily to find that Magma had been joined by Spyke and Berserker. Magma had encased herself with flame so that she looked like she was one of Pyro's creations. All three mutants glared at Toad. Before Toad could react, Spyke's skin grew long spikes that detached from his skin and flew towards Toad. Toad ducked and the spikes rooted themselves to a tree. Toad jumped over a ball of fire and an electric shock. At the same time, he saw Hammerhead standing around a little ways away. Toad gave a demonic smile. He wrenched one of the long spikes from the tree behind him and threw it with all his strength towards the three attacking mutants. The spike grazed both Magma and Berzerker's arms leaving small cuts that began to bleed slowly.

"I'd hate to be you now," said Toad as he jumped over them to attack someone else.

"What'd he mean by that?" Spyke asked the other two who shrugged.

Nearby, Hammerhead looked up. He sniffed the air. He smiled widely, showing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. He turned towards the group of three mutants who were watching Toad hop away. He immediately began to advance on them.

"He's a disgusting toad," said Magma, "Of course nothing he says will make any.."

"Heads up, people!" Berserker shouted.

Hammerhead had reached them. He shoved Spyke out of the way and moved towards Magma and Berserker, opening his mouth, revealing his two rows of sharp teeth.

"I'll fry you to a fish stick!" Berserker yelled, releasing bolts of blue electricity into Hammerhead. The bolts only seemed to slow him down and make him angry. Magma launched two pairs of fireballs at Hammerhead. They hit him leaving burn marks on his skin, but once again only slowing him down.

"Run for it!" Berserker shouted as he broke into a sprint with Magma on his heels. Hammerhead immediately burst into a run. He made a leap and tackled Magma to the ground. He opened his mouth to take a bite out of her back, but he was thrown back by the force of a searing, green beam. Hammerhead looked up to see Quasar shoot another green beam at him. He rolled out of the way as the grass sizzled where the beam hit the ground. He forgot about Berserker and Magma to move towards Quasar, dodging her beams.

Flash watched Nucleo destroy another few trees with another whip-like ray. As he watched the trees burn to the ground, he caught sight of Hammerhead advancing toward Quasar. Quasar was attempting to hit Hammerhead with her beams of glowing, green luminescence, but he was evading them too quickly. Flash broke into a run and started to glow.

Hammerhead was almost to his "next meal", when a blinding flash of light left his eyes temporarily useless. He stopped moving and was hit by another sweltering beam.

Logan was in a heated fight with Sabretooth. They both knew each others' moves so well, however, that the fight was sure to never end. Logan looked up to see Beast swing from a tree and slam his feet into Sabretooth. He was so busy watching them, that he didn't see the shimmering king of spades land at his feet. It exploded, sending Logan flying backwards.

Cyclops fired his optic blasts at Gambit who was laughing at the quickly recovering Logan. As Gambit soared through the air, Jean used her powers to send him careening into Massacre, phasing through Shadowcat in the process. Massacre got up and was joined by an identical copy of him. They each took a dagger from their belt and flung them at Jean and Cyclops. Cyclops blasted one out of the sky and Jean simply created a psychic bubble around herself. One Massacre became angry and transformed into Beast. The newly created Beast charged Cyclops, but was blown away from him by a strong gust of wind created by Storm, who began to create lightning bolts. The phony Beast transformed into its original form, Mystique.

Close by, Shroud, Daydream, and a pit bull fled from Photon, who was firing continuously at them. Piledriver walked up behind Photon. Photon spun around to meet Piledriver's huge fist. Photon was knocked backwards, but he instantly got back up again. The strange looking weapon swung out from Photon's back. The tip glowed for a moment and suddenly released a thin laser from it, straight at Piledriver. Nightcrawler came from nowhere and landed on Piledriver's back. Just before the laser made contact, Nightcrawler and Piledriver disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The laser created a massive crater where the two X-Men had been an instant ago. Photon gritted his teeth and turned around. He was once again knocked to the ground. He looked up to see Quicksilver laughing at him. Photon got up, confused. He became even more confused when a golden mist departed from Quicksilver's ear. Quicksilver stopped laughing and looked around with a blank expression on his face. Shroud suddenly appeared behind Quicksilver and tripped him. Photon prepared to fire on both Quicksilver's attacker and the golden mist which had become Daydream. Photon was suddenly slammed to the ground for a third time.

"Nice going!" Shroud called to the polar bear standing behind the fallen Photon.

The polar bear growled proudly and stepped on Photon's head.

On the other side of the sloped area, Outlet removed a flashlight from his pocket. He turned it on, letting the beam point endlessly to the sky. He opened his hand and the light left the flashlight and entered Outlet's hand as a glowing ball. He whipped around just as Locust landed in front of him with a nasty smile on his grotesque face. Locust opened his mouth to breath a cloud of pestilence at Outlet, but the ball of light shot from Outlet's palm. The light struck Locust in the face and he let out a screech of agony. Outlet turned his flashlight back on and stroked his goatee. Outlet had used his energy to restore the light.

Redwood's fingers extended into vines and wrapped around Blob's thick legs. Blob looked down and grabbed a handful of the vines. He gave them a forceful tug and Redwood hurtled towards Blob. Blob stepped sideways and Redwood collided with the ground. Blob laughed and took a step backwards. Right on top of Siryn's foot. Blob dropped the vines and covered his ears as Siryn's abnormally piercing scream echoed around the trees. Nearby, what was left of Avalanche's helmet shattered above his head.

"Whoa, what was that?" Avalanche asked an ear-covering Quicksilver who jerked his thumb toward the screaming girl next to the kneeling Blob.

Both Avalanche and Quicksilver turned around and looked up into Colossus's face. Avalanche picked up Quicksilver who began to protest incoherently. Avalanche tried to slam Quicksilver into Colossus but Quicksilver just went right through Colossus's metal skin. Colossus stepped to the side to reveal Shadowcat leaning on him. He picked up Avalanche and Quicksilver and bashed their heads together, knocking them out cold.

Hammerhead took a huge bite out of a tree. The tree landed with a thud on Komodo's head which knocked him unconscious. Komodo fell on top of Ooze.

"Dude, you're heavy," Ooze said to the unconscious Komodo, "Would you mind getting off?"

Paste threw a handful of a gluey substance at Shadowcat, but only succeeded in gluing Avalanche and Quicksilver to Colossus's feet. Paste gave an embarrassed laugh and ran away as Colossus pulled Avalanche and Quicksilver from his feet and launched them across the landscape. Paste approached Mosquito.

"Hey, I have an idea," Paste told him.

"Do tell," Mosquito said fixing his goggle-like glasses.

"Just use your power on everyone that I glue to the ground," Paste said smiling, "If this works, we may have some hostages for Magneto."

Paste hurried away. Mosquito's insect-like wings lifted him off the ground and he followed Paste.

Shroud and Daydream were riding on a llama to escape Photon's lasers, when a large glob of glue sent Shroud toppling to the ground. The llama skidded to a halt. It started to turn back to help Shroud, but a whip-like beam suddenly shot six inches from the llama's face. The llama took a good number of steps backward before tripping over an unconscious Komodo and a complaining Ooze. Daydream fell off the llama and landed on Komodo making Ooze give a loud "Oof," from under them all. Shroud watched the whole scene with a look of pity on his face and a blanket of glue covering him. He looked up to see Mosquito hovering above him.

"Oops," said Shroud sardonically, "I left my pesticides at home."

Mosquito reached out a hand and placed his fingers on Shroud's forehead.

"Hey, don't touch me with those..." Mosquito removed his hand from Shroud's forehead.

"Ok, Paste, this one's out cold," Mosquito informed Paste, "Who's next?"

Paste merely ran off in another direction with Mosquito hovering after him.

Wolfsbane watched as Sunspot picked up Pillbug as his iron ball and threw him as far as he could. Sunspot turned around to look at Wolfsbane, but instead saw Massacre with a dagger pointed in his face. Wolfsbane was behind him, in her human form, pinned to the ground by her sleeves with daggers. Massacre pushed Sunspot backwards, but Sunspot didn't fall. He could only watch as Paste and Mosquito surrounded Wolfsbane. Paste covered her with a huge glob of glue and Mosquito placed his fingers on her forehead. Sunspot saw her stop struggling. He was too preoccupied with Wolfsbane, that he didn't see the form of Redwood's fist grow into a gigantic tree limb. The limb was still shaped like a fist as it punched Massacre with an extreme amount of strength. In the process, the dagger that had been pointed in Sunspot's face grazed his nose, leaving behind a bleeding cut. Sunspot didn't have time to go and help Wolfsbane because Hammerhead suddenly appeared, apparently smelling the newly spilled blood from Sunspot's nose. Hammerhead chased Sunspot and Redwood away as Paste and Mosquito went to find another target.

Shadowcat looked up as a puddle of glue formed around her feet.

"Do you, like, actually think that's going to hold me?" said Shadowcat haughtily, "You totally don't know what I can..."

Mosquito had just drifted behind Shadowcat and had placed his fingers on the back of her neck.

"Take what you need and leave," Magneto's voice reverberated through the sloped area. Blob had just cracked Nucleo over the head with his fist and was now lifting him over his shoulder. Paste and Mosquito picked up Shadowcat and Wolfsbane.

"Hey, Sabretooth!" Paste yelled, "Take care of the kid with the camo."

Sabretooth picked up Shroud and carried him off. Before the X-Men could do anything, the Brotherhood had disappeared entirely.

"Come on, people!" Beast shouted to the remaining X-Men.

"We can't leave!" Shift objected, "They mutant-napped my brother!"

"We can't go looking for him now," instructed Cyclops, "We need to inform Professor Xavier of the situation."

"But, Shadowcat's gone too," Nightcrawler joined in, while Shift said something about the Professor being able to read minds.

"So's Wolfsbane," Sunspot added.

"We still need to see the Professor," said Cyclops in an end of discussion tone, "Besides we need to recover before we go rescuing."

Everyone followed Cyclops back to the plane, most of the students grumbling. Xavier was waiting for them.

"Everyone get back on the plane," he said, before anyone could speak, "We'll talk when we get back to the institute."


	6. Rescue

Disclaimer: Well, now that I've solved all of my reviewers problems, I don't know what to say in here. I suppose I should tell you to just keep reviewing because I'm at a grand total of seven. SEVEN!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Would I lie to you? Of course not. Guess what happens in this chapter? Well, see, Photon puts down this tank with little holes in it. Magneto says. Wait a minute. why do I even bother. If no one is reading my book than that means no one's reading my disclaimer! That was pointless. mysteriously disappears

* * *

Photon put down a large glass tank with tiny holes in the top. They were back in the Brotherhood headquarters.

"Put the hostages in the tank," Magneto ordered, "It has been enhanced so that no one can escape from it. Not even the phasing one."

Mosquito, Sabretooth, and Paste dropped Kitty, Rahne, and Shawn into the tank. They were still unconscious. Blob moved towards the tank, holding the lifeless Nucleo in his arms.

"Blob," Magneto instructed, "Give Nucleo to Sabretooth. We need to put him in a different location."

Blob did as he was told although a little confused. Toad and Pyro dragged a struggling kid through the entrance causing Photon to drop the awakening Nightmare.

"Should we put this one in the tank?" Toad asked, "We found him skulkin' around outside."

"We could burn him, instead," suggested Pyro as everyone turned to look at him, "It was only my opinion, mates."

Without waiting for an answer, Toad stuffed the besieged kid into the tank and slammed the porous lid shut.

"Gambit, Sabretooth, Mystique," Magneto said loudly, "Come with me."

"Where's Massacre?" asked Gambit, who had scorched holes in his trench coat.

"He is too injured to accompany us," Magneto explained, "He will be staying here under the rest of the Brotherhood's care."

Gambit looked around.

"I pity him," he said to himself.

The four left and everything went back to normal. Lance and Pietro were attempting to get unglued while shouting insults at each other. Mosquito and Pyro had gone back to watching some dumb show about cows. Everyone else except Massacre and Nightmare were waiting at the card table for Lance to deal them a hand.

"Hey, Gumball," Toad said to Paste, "Get rid of that glue so we can play,"

Paste did as he was told and they sat down to another night of poker as if nothing had happened for days. Eventually, the three hostages woke up to find an unfamiliar kid in the tank with them.

"Hey, kid," Shawn said to him, "Who're you?"

"Cory Sanders," the kid said.

"_THE_ Colonel Sanders?!" Shawn said amazed.

"He said _Cory_," Kitty said annoyed, "You, like never get anything right."

"Oh," said Shawn, a little disappointed. He looked around, "Hey, look where we are."

"It's, like, the Brotherhood headquarters," Kitty said, also looking around.

"This should be fun," said Shawn mischievously, "Years of spending time with Aaron's insults have given me plenty of ideas for my own."

"Here we go," said Rahne rolling her eyes.

"Hey!" Shawn said, noticing the card game, "Poker! Can I play?"

"Are you kidding?" said Pietro giving Shawn a dirty look, "Since when do hostages play poker?"

"Since now," said Shawn, "I love poker. Are you playing for money?"

They resumed their card game, ignoring Shawn.

"Ok, then," said Shawn grinning, "I'll just help."

He looked over at Kitty and Rahne and winked.

"Hey, Tubbs!" Shawn started, "Wart Man has a straight! I'd fold while you can."

Blob immediately put down his cards.

"Hey, you," Toad whined as everyone dropped their cards, "You're losing my money."

"Just doing everyone a favor." Shawn shrugged his shoulders.

Shawn continued annoying the card players. Kitty sulked in the corner. Rahne thought about why she had to get stuck with Shawn instead of Roberto. Cory seemed interested in Shawn's comments and was listening intently.

"Aagh!" Toad screamed, "I've had enough! I'm out of here!"

He flung his cards in the air and hopped to his bedroom.

"It's getting to be too much for me too," said Lance, "I'm going to bed."

Everyone else seemed to agree and they all went into their rooms. Shawn resorted to the two watching TV.

"Hey, Skeeter!" Shawn called to Mosquito, "Whatcha watchin?"

"Oh, Mother of Pearl," Mosquito muttered, "He's got started on us now."

Pyro just smiled at a burning barn with cows running away on the TV screen.

"How about you, Hades?" Shawn started again, "Can _you_ tell me what's on tonight?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to catch a few winks," Mosquito said to the mesmerized Pyro.

"This isn't much fun anymore," said Shawn to Cory, "There's no one left to make fun of."

Kitty and Rahne had fallen asleep so Shawn and Cory decided to sleep, too.

"Just think how disgusted Amara would be if she was here," Shawn said to himself right before he dropped off to sleep.

* * *

Jean entered the medical center carrying a pair of crutches. Roberto was stretched out on a bed with a cracked rib from his encounter with Pillbug and a bandaged nose. Jean passed Amara and Ray who were leaving with their arms bound up to stop their bleeding. Jean moved past Kyle's bed. He had obtained a slight concussion from the fallen tree landing on his head and was still unconscious. Jean approached Siryn who was sitting up on the edge of her bed, her broken foot in a cast.

"They don't call him the Blob for nothing," Jean said to Siryn who attempted a smile. Jean handed her the crutches, "You'll probably need these for a while."

Jean went to tend to Roberto while Siryn left the room on her crutches. Siryn made her way down the hall. She turned the corner to see Aaron sitting on the floor.

"Why aren't you in the meal room eating?" Siryn asked him, "Are you up to something?"

"Huh?" Aaron suddenly realized she was there, "Oh, no, I'm not up to anything. I was just..."

He stopped.

"Just what?" Siryn asked him.

"Uh, what happened to your foot?" Aaron asked.

"Blob stepped on it," Siryn explained, "But what were you talking about before?"

"Oh, well, I might as well explain," Aaron said, "You see, Shawn is a whole lot better at making plans than I am, so right now I feel useless, like there's nothing to do anymore. I'm really bored."

"You miss him?" Siryn guessed correctly.

"Well, he's my brother," Aaron said rather embarrassed, "What do you expect?"

"Why don't you go eat?" said Siryn, "Avoiding food just makes it worse."

"Oh, alright," Aaron agreed, "I'll come."

They both continued down the hall and entered the Meal Room. They each sat at the same end of the table, across from each other.

"Is your foot alright?" Rogue asked.

"Yeah," said Siryn, "It hurts a little, but its fine."

"I'm sorry about Shawn," Bobby said from next to Aaron.

"Yeah," said Aaron rather gloomily.

Not even Ruben could think of anything else to say after that. Everyone finished their dinner and went to bed. Scott watched them from a nearby table. Jean walked in and sat down next to him.

"I checked on the students in the medical center," she said, "They were all OK."

"That's good," said Scott.

"What's wrong, Scott?" Jean asked, concerned.

"I just feel bad for leaving students behind, just to talk to the professor," Scott explained.

"You did what you had to do," Jean reassured him, "There was no way we could have gone after Magneto and the Brotherhood."

"There's something else," said Scott, "What's Magneto going to do with Nucleo? Nucleo isn't going to work for him. Do you think Magneto wants to experiment on Nucleo?"

"I know Magneto's cruel and everything," said Jean, "but I don't think he would actually experiment on his own kind."

Scott started to say something, but his spaghetti had just grown a lot taller than it should have been.

"Want skettys?" asked Bear through the long strands of saucy pasta covering his hair.

Scott plucked a meatball from Bear's fur.

"No thanks, Bear," Scott said calmly, "You can have it."

"No skettys for me," Bear said cheerfully, "I's full."

With that, he hopped out of the plate of spaghetti and onto the floor, getting sauce everywhere. Scott threw away the rest of the spaghetti and he and Jean went up to bed.

* * *

The days passed slowly and a week from the big fight, Shawn found himself bored.

"I wouldn't be bored if Aaron was here," Shawn told Cory, "He has the greatest insults."

"I think your just afraid that Aaron might try to horn in on you and Melanie," Rahne said smiling innocently.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Shawn asked turning red, "I don't understand."

"Roberto told me all about the little conversation between you and your brother about Melanie," Rahne explained.

"Uh, well," Shawn stuttered, "Are you sure you heard him right?"

"Shawn with Melanie?" Kitty said as if she couldn't imagine Shawn with anybody, "That's, like, totally weird."

Cory didn't say anything because he had no idea who Melanie or Roberto or anyone was.

"So, uh, Cory," Shawn decided to change the subject, "Are you a mutant?"

"Well, he's not a normal human," Kitty said, "Or Magneto would have, like, totally fried him."

"Oh, right," said Shawn, still recovering from his previous embarrassment, "So, uh, what's your ability?"

"I can lower peoples' body temperatures," said Cory, "I can... kill people."

"Um, yeah," Shawn said, "How nice."

The four hostages looked over to the entrance to see Magneto walk in with Mystique, Sabretooth, and Gambit.

"Hey, we got our old dealer back!" shouted Toad, "It's about time. I think Lance cheats!"

"Prepare the hostages for travel," Magneto announced, "We'll be taking them somewhere else in a few days."

He strode out the door leaving the other three standing there.

"Like, this is totally not good," Kitty said, worried.

"If they move us, the X-Men won't be able to find us," Rahne said in the same tone.

"Don't be silly," said Shawn, who had completely recovered from his humiliation and was watching Gambit walk towards the card table, "Professor Xavier can use his Cerebretron 3000 or whatever to find us."

"Oh yeah!" Kitty exclaimed as Cory looked around, confused, "the Professor can use Cerebro to find us!"

They all were in a better mood than before, except for Cory who didn't understand what they were talking about.

* * *

Professor Xavier rolled out of Cerebro's chamber to meet Scott, Jean, and Hank.

"Did you find them?" Scott asked immediately.

"Yes," said Xavier calmly, "They are being held captive in an old warehouse."

"When should we leave?" asked Hank.

"As soon as possible," said Xavier, "We shall inform the students of our departure."

"But," said Scott, "They can't come. That's how we got into this mess. The students were captured because they came along."

"Scott, you know as well as I do that we are hopelessly outnumbered without the students," Xavier said.

"But," Scott gave up, "OK, fine."

"Let's tell the students," said Jean.

The students were eating lunch. They had all given up trying to get Ruben to turn down his music. Ruben was singing to himself.

"Has everyone in the medical center recovered yet?" asked Louis over the words 'there's a suitcase pokin' me in the ribs, there's an elbow in my ear'.

"I don't think so," said Amara, "Roberto's nose is alright, but his rib is still healing."

"Dude, don't forget that Kyle is still totally busted," Allen put in.

"I can't walk without my crutches yet," added Siryn.

"Our whole school might as well be full of lepers!" Ray said in frustration and Amara gave him a dirty look.

Ruben suddenly burst into some melody with his tongue sticking out. Everyone stared at him, but he didn't notice. He just kept singing 'the window doesn't open and the fan is broke and my face is turnin' blue'. Sarah held back a giggle. Allen laughed rather stupidly.

"There is something really wrong with him," said Ray.

Jean approached the table.

"We're going to leave tonight to save the other students," she announced.

"I should have got off a couple miles ago, but I couldn't get to the door," Ruben sang.

"Siryn, you won't be able to come," Jean continued giving Ruben a strange look, "You'll have to stay here with Roberto and Kyle."

"As long as you come back," said Siryn.

"What kind of..." Ray started but Amara yanked on his hair.

"Come to the Blackbird after dinner," Jean said, "Try not to be late."

"Late for what?" Ben and Peter had just walked up behind Jean.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Jean said as she turned around, "We're going to rescue the students from the Brotherhood. Meet us at the Blackbird after dinner."

Ben rubbed his bald head, "Who's staying to watch the injured ones?"

"We chose Logan for the job," Jean said with a smile.

Everyone but Logan and the injured students met at the Blackbird after dinner. They boarded quickly and Cyclops started up the jet. Everyone seemed extremely quiet, as if they were on their way to the gallows.

"I hope we win," Ruben whispered to Sarah.

The jet landed a little ways from the warehouse. Everyone except Xavier walked down the ramp towards a door in the side of the warehouse.

"Oh, come on," Mosquito protested, "You've seen this episode at least eighteen times."

Sabretooth growled and Mosquito fell silent. They were watching the Munsters on TVLAND. Toad's tongue shot out and snatched the remote from the arm of Sabertooth's armchair.

"Cut it out, mate!" Pyro said wiping slime from his face.

Toad changed the channel. The four of them then settled down to watch Homer Simpson grab a beer from a packed fridge.

Gambit dealt another hand. Nightmare had recovered and had joined in with the rest of the card players.

"Blob's got the nine of clubs," announced Locust.

"Hey, quit looking at my cards," Blob said menacingly.

"I'm on the other side of the table, moron," Locust said rolling his eyes, "I can't see your cards. The nine of clubs has a ketchup stain on the back because of _you_."

They continued their game, unaware that the X-Men were standing right outside. Shawn was poking his fingers through the holes in the top of the tank and making weird noises through the side of his mouth. Cory was attempting to see what episode of the Simpsons was on TV.

"Do you think Rogue and Bobby really belong together?" Rahne asked Kitty.

"Sometimes they seem like the nicest couple, but other times they, like, seem totally different." Kitty commented.

"How about Ruben?" Rahne asked, "He seems to have an interest in Sarah."

Kitty giggled, "I noticed that, too."

"What about Melanie and Shawn?" Rahne asked looking over at Shawn.

Shawn looked over at the two girls. They smiled innocently at him. Shawn raised an eyebrow and returned to making strange noises. Rahne and Kitty were about to continue their conversation when Colossus and Piledriver plowed down the door. The entire Brotherhood looked up from what they were doing. By the time the situation had registered in their heads, all the X-Men had walked into the headquarters. Gambit and Sabretooth jumped up first.

"Why don't you show them your winning hand," said Pillbug, who had been looking at Gambit's cards.

Gambit hurled his royal flush at the X-Men, all of which scattered instantly. Shift had transformed into a large rat and fled into one of the rooms. The rat jumped up onto one of the beds. Massacre looked up into the rat's face. He started to yell but instead let out a series of coughs and leapt from the bed. He grabbed a nearby broom. The rat's eyes widened as the broom struck him on the head. He jumped off the bed and ran from the room.

"I hate those things," Massacre said to himself, breathing heavily.

Sabretooth picked up one of the armchairs and threw it towards a group of the students. Flare blasted the chair to pieces with one of his red bolts. Toad shot out his foot sending Flare soaring backward and into the wall. Sabretooth lifted another chair.

"Wait! Not my chair, mate!" Pyro shouted at him and then, being out of uniform, he pulled a lighter from his pocket and ignited the chair in Sabertooth's hands. Sabretooth simultaneously launched the chair towards Flare, who was brushing himself off. He looked up to see a burning armchair hurtling toward him. Nightcrawler appeared next to him and grabbed his arm. They disappeared in a puff of smoke as the chair shattered against the wall, cracking it.

Cannonball flew towards Quicksilver at top speed. But even top speed was too slow for Quicksilver. He dashed out of the way and Cannonball slammed into Blob and simply bounced backwards onto the floor. Blob laughed and picked up the card table sending cards flying in every direction.

Rogue dodged a glowing card and grabbed Avalanche's leg. Avalanche stood bewildered for a moment at Rogue and then passed out on the floor. Rogue tried to push Avalanche's memories away. She saw Lance spray painting lockers. She saw Kitty phase through the lockers and collide with Lance. She saw Lance bring down an entire school. Rogue forced the images away and looked over to where Blob was about to crush Cannonball with the card table. Rogue stomped her foot, using Avalanche's powers. Blob was suddenly caught off balance and fell over backwards dropping the card table. Cannonball got up and ran back towards Rogue.

"Thanks," he said appreciatively.

"I owed you one," Rogue said.

Shawn, Kitty, Rahne, and Cory moved to one side of the tank as Quasar cut a hole in the other side with her intensely hot beams. Flash temporarily blinded anyone who came to close to the tank. The four hostages climbed out of the tank.

"Get out of here!" Mystique yelled to the Brotherhood, "Follow Gambit and Sabretooth!"

The Brotherhood made for the back door. Nightmare stole a quick glance at the blonde girl he had seen at the recent battle as he passed her. He knew she looked familiar, but he couldn't remember who she was. Nightmare was shoved out the back door by Toad and Paste who had someone bundled in a ball of glue.

"Move it, you Lilac-Headed Sleep Spook!" Toad shouted at him. The X-Men stared at the open back door and the destroyed Brotherhood headquarters.

"Well, our mission has been accomplished," Aaron said as he pointed to Shawn.

"It just wasn't the same without you, old bean," Shawn said in a phony accent, "Here, I want you to meet someone."

Shawn turned around to introduce Aaron to Cory. Cory was gone.

"Hey!" Shawn exclaimed, "Cory! Where are you hiding at?"

"You must have been pretty bored to have made up a friend," Ray said grinning.

"No, he was with us in the tank!" Shawn said frantically, "Kitty and Rahne saw him, too."

Cyclops looked over to Kitty and Rahne who nodded.

"If we get back to the institute in time," Cyclops turned back to Shawn, "Professor Xavier can track him with Cerebro."

Everyone followed Cyclops back to the Blackbird. When everyone got back, they went to bed, except Rahne who went to the medical center to visit Roberto, and Shawn who kept Aaron awake telling him what Cory was like.


	7. Infiltration

Disclaimer: You know, I really need to thank my reviewers. Not that there's that many. I really thank BobbyD12. If I gave a prize for the person who gave me the most reviews. It would be BobbyD12. But getting to the point, I need reviews, people! I'm sure everyone is laughing at me because of the extremely low amount of reviews I have. But, anyway, I'd like to say: SNARF! disappears mysteriously

* * *

Magneto stood watching Nucleo floating in a large tube of greenish liquid, still unconscious. 

"If my experiment works, Nucleo," Magneto said, basically to the air, "I will not need your cooperation. I will have your power."

Magneto smiled.

"All I need is a test," he said.

As if he was waiting for Magneto to say that, Paste walked in, followed by Toad and Blob. Each of them were carrying a bundle of glue.

"We were attacked," said Toad as Magneto turned around, "By the X-Men."

"They took three of the hostages," Paste explained and indicated the bundles of glue, "We got one and found another on the way here."

"What's in the third bundle?" Magneto asked suspiciously.

"Er," Paste said, "We, uh..."

"It's a raccoon," said Blob.

"Let me out of here, mates!" the bundle said.

"It's a talking, Australian raccoon," Toad added.

"Drop the first two bundles," Magneto said, "Then take the third downstairs and free Pyro from it."

They did as they were told dragging the talking bundle away.

"Good," said Magneto, "We'll begin tomorrow."

* * *

"What's this Cory like?" Bobby asked Shawn the next morning. 

"You might as well ask me," Aaron said sleepily, "I heard all about him last night."

"You'd like him, Aaron," Shawn said, "I told him about our pranks and he thinks they're fascinating."

"I know what he thinks, Shawn," Aaron said with a yawn, "You told me already."

"What did you guys do while you were in that tank?" Amara asked Kitty.

"Well, Shawn, like, started annoying the Brotherhood," Kitty began, "But that, like, didn't last long, so me and Rahne just talked about stuff every day, but that, like, got totally boring after, like, three days."

"Did they feed you dry bread and gruel?" Ray asked.

"Ray, that's gross!" Amara said, disgusted.

"Everything's _gross_ to you," Ray said, irritated.

"Stop," Rogue said quickly, "This happens way too often."

Bobby's bacon flew through the air.

"**_This_** happens way too often," Bobby said as Bear smiled at him from his plate.

"Bakkin cunchy," Bear said chewing on one of the slices of bacon.

"Why does he always pop out of peoples' food," asked Roberto, who had fully recovered from his cracked rib.

"It's just what he does," said Bobby leaning on his hand.

* * *

Xavier had gathered the teachers in his office. They were all seated around him. 

"I have not only discovered the whereabouts of Cory Sanders," Xavier explained looking around at them all, "I have discovered Magneto's plan for Nucleo."

"Let me guess," Logan said derisively, "It's real bad."

"Magneto is in fact going to experiment on Nucleo," Xavier continued, "He is going to try to steal Nucleo's power."

"I knew it!" Scott became angry with himself.

"Magneto has taken Cory to his new hideout so that he can test his experiment on him first," Xavier said, a little urgently, "I don't know how dangerous the experiment can be, but judging from Magneto's past experiments, this one could be just as deadly."

"We'll have to leave right away," said Storm.

"Yes," Xavier agreed, "His new hideout is farther away and will take longer to get to."

"I'll go tell the students," Hank said.

"I'll come with you," Jean insisted.

The two departed to inform the students of the coming trip.

"Should we take Kyle?" asked Scott, "He's still unconscious."

"We will take Kyle Grifford with us," said Xavier closing the issue, "We should go and get ready."

The X-Men got on the Blackbird reluctantly. It seemed like they had just gotten off of it. Kyle was placed in a seat next to Jean so that she could make sure he didn't fall over. Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and to everyone's surprise, Bear had come along to help.

"This is getting real old," Ray complained.

"Dude, you're totally right," Allen agreed, "I feel like this is my summer home."

Instead of staying quiet, like the preceding attack on the Brotherhood, the students were all talking to each other. Some were talking about the upcoming mission, other were talking about things of no importance.

"Everyone pay attention," Xavier said loudly, "I have found that Magneto's hideout is very complex. We will have to split up into groups. Brian, Mr. Kamon, and Bear will stay with me. I hope I can trust the students to be safe if they choose their own groups. There must be at least four to a group. The adults can go alone if they wish."

Everyone spent the rest of the trip choosing groups.

"Whaddaya say, Shawn?" Aaron said, "Should we join forces to form the ultimate group?"

"That sounds like a plan!" Shawn said enthusiastically, "Who else should we recruit?"

The twins began to look around for suitable teammates.

"Should we decline if they ask us?" Bobby asked Rogue.

"Yeah, we probably should," Rogue replied.

"We should probably join another two people before they do," Bobby suggested.

"Dude, you can't have Kyle," Allen said to them, "We already claimed him."

Allen indicated Ray and Max who were sitting near him.

"That's too bad," said Bobby, rolling his eyes, "We really wanted Kyle in our group."

"How about Amara?" Rogue asked Bobby, "You don't mind her."

"OK," Bobby said, "Sam can be our fourth person."

"Hey, Louis! Jubilee!" Kurt shouted, extremely close to Logan's head, "Join me and Kitty!"

"Quiet, Elf!" Logan growled, forcing Kurt back into his seat.

Shawn and Aaron had chosen Melanie and Siryn to be in their _ultimate_ group. Evan and Travis decided on letting Ben into their group. Since Ben was old enough not to be considered a student, Evan's group only needed three people. Peter joined with Jean and Scott. Tom and Logan were going alone. Storm and Hank were in the same group. Roberto had just inducted Sarah into the group with him and Rahne.

"Um, Roberto," Rahne started, "There's something faulty about your decision."

Ruben had just spotted them and had begun to walk towards them.

"Hi, guys," Ruben said cheerfully, "You guys only have three people so if you don't mind, I'll join you."

Before Roberto could say that he _did_ mind, Ruben sat down with them and made himself comfortable. The jet eventually landed near a large factory looking building. Everyone, including Xavier and Kyle, who was being carried by Max, moved down the ramp.

"Wow, the Professor was telling the truth," said Bobby, amazed, "This place looks like one of the most complex buildings I've ever seen."

"Gee, that's too bad, Iceberg," Aaron said, "That place is evil and we don't like it."

"Brian, Mr. Kamon, Bear, follow me," Xavier instructed. He disappeared with Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and Bear following behind him.

"I guess we should split up into our groups now," said Scott replacing his sunglasses with his ruby-quartz visor.

Everyone got into their groups and followed Scott towards an iron door set into the large building. Tom walked to the front and pulled the door off of its hinges without a sound.

"Dude, Mr. Fulke, that was so totally awesome," Allen said, his eyes wide.

Everyone crept inside to find a large basement-like room with various doors around it. The groups spread out to look around.

"What's this?" Ruben asked no one in particular. He touched a musty covered piece of machinery. He jumped back in surprise as it collapsed down into a pile of dust on the floor.

"Quit touching stuff, freak," Ray said to him quietly.

"Alright, people," Hank said as silently as he could but still making himself audible among the groups, "We're going to split up and go into these doors."

The groups did as they were told. Each took one door and proceeded to go through it.

* * *

Bobby's group entered a room with shelves full of vials. Most were empty, but Sam spotted three that were filled with a swirling, orange liquid. He picked them up. 

"We might need these," Sam said simply.

"What are all these for?" Amara asked, looking around at all the vials.

"Maybe we should take a few more," Rogue suggested, "Just in case."

They each filled their pockets with as many vials as they would hold.

"There's another door," Bobby pointed to a metal door set into the side of the room.

"We might as well go through it," Amara said a little impatiently, "We can't just stop here."

* * *

Meanwhile, Kurt, Kitty, Jubilee, and Louis had entered a room with nothing in it except for what looked like spear sticking out of the wall. 

"Don't touch it!" Jubilee said as Kitty walked up beside it, "It could spring a trap."

"Good thinking, Jubilee," Kurt said and then walked past the spear and towards the door on the other side. Jubilee realized, too late, that there was a nearly invisible beam extended from the tip of the spear to the opposite wall. As soon as Kurt had walked through it, the room began to shake. All four students looked up as the wooden beams positioned above them collapsed, burying them beneath the wreckage.

"Great," said Louis, muffled by the debris, "They probably know we're here now."

"I'm so sorry," Kurt apologized, "I didn't know it would do that."

"Like, Kurt, you're totally being too hard on yourself," Kitty said comfortingly, "Besides, you and me can get Jubilee and Louis out of here."

"Oh, yeah," Kurt said, rather embarrassed, "I forgot. I can reach Louis from where I am, so you can get Jubilee."

Kurt and Louis teleported out from under the rubble and Kitty merely phased through it with Jubilee. They then spent nearly ten minutes wading through the fragments of wood and stone to get to the door.

* * *

Shawn and Aaron had led Melanie and Siryn into a small hallway with two extended cages covering the length of the room. There were three figures trapped in the cage to the left. 

"Hey, Aaron, it's Cory!" Shawn said amazed, "Uh, who are your friends?"

"Oh, them," Cory said from behind the iron bars, "Well, this is Frank Rogers."

Cory gestured to a boy with light brown hair and green eyes.

"Some people call me Toxin," Frank said, "My saliva is terribly hazardous to the epidermis. I'm a human biohazard."

"The guy sitting in the corner is Lorenzo Romero," Cory continued, "He's not in the best mood right now, so I wouldn't try to talk to him, but he's also called Geyser, self explanatory, he makes geysers just pop right out of the ground."

"I thought Magneto only had two hostages," Siryn said confused.

"How do you know about that?" Aaron asked, "Normally, _we_ would find out about any extra information."

"Mr. Summers came and talked about it with Dr. Grey when she was taking off my cast," Siryn explained.

"Anyway, Lorenzo just came in this morning," Cory said.

"Couldn't you guys just bust out?" Shawn asked.

"Uh, well, we could, but, Magneto's experiment sort of deprives us of our mutations," Frank said, looking at the floor.

"So his experiment worked," Aaron said, raising an eyebrow.

"Who cares," said Shawn, hurriedly, "Just break them out, you vicious animal."

Aaron gave Shawn a look that said 'I'll break them out when I'm ready' and transformed into a horsefly. He flew between two bars and then transformed into a hippo, bending the bars into a large escape hole.

"Thanks, Shawn," Cory said to Aaron.

"Don't thank him," Aaron said, exasperated, "He just stood there watching. Thank me! Aaron!"

"Oh, sorry," Cory apologized, "I can't tell you two apart."

"_He's_ the human zoo," Shawn explained, "_I'm_ the guy in the camo suit."

Frank left the caged area followed by Lorenzo who turned to Aaron, saying, "Gracias, señor."

"Oui, Oui," Aaron said with an utterly bewildered look on his face

"He doesn't speak Spanish all the time," Cory said to Aaron, "Uh, I don't think I know _your_ friends, Shawn."

"Oh, yes," Shawn said with a look of mock seriousness appearing on his face, "The clone is my brother, Aaron. He can be called Shift, but we don't really like it that much. The girl next to him, is Siryn. She, uh, screams real loud, or something, and I guess that's why they call her that. And, um, finally, this is..."

Shawn's face reddened, "This is Melanie. Some people also call her, er, Daydream."

"Let me take a guess why you call her that," Aaron said sardonically.

"_Everyone _calls her that," Shawn said, his face becoming redder.

"I don't know," Aaron replied giving Shawn a suspicious look, "Maybe it's because you always _daydrea_..."

Shawn had just elbowed Aaron hard in the ribs. Frank then gestured towards a door, opposite the one they had entered through. They all followed him, but in the process, Cory pulled Shawn to the back of the procession.

"So," he said so that only Shawn could hear, "That's the Melanie they were talking about in the tank?"

"Er," Shawn apparently didn't know what to say, "Um."

"I thought so," said Cory, smiling.

They followed the others into the next room, Shawn's face still red from Cory's statement.

* * *

A room away, Allen and Ray had walked through a door followed by Max, who was carrying the unconscious Kyle. The room was completely empty. The only unique thing about it was the strange tiles making up the floor. 

"C'mon, guys," Ray said, bored, "Let's keep going."

"Dude, Max might drop Kyle if we go too fast," Allen objected.

"Max could carry all three of us if he wanted," Ray said pointedly, "Plus he could probably run while doing it."

Allen didn't say anything, so they moved further into the room. As soon as Max had stepped into the room, however, the tiles on the floor began to change color. The surprise of it stopped all three in their tracks. The doorways on both sides of the room were suddenly sealed with iron doors.

"Max," said Ray, looking at the floor, "You can take care of those doors."

Max began to walk towards the door on the far end of the room. He abruptly halted, though, when he stepped on a tile that had turned jet black. The instant he set his foot down on the black tile, the rest of the floor turned exactly the same color. Before anyone knew what was going on, all the tiles simply disappeared altogether. Allen, Ray, and Max found themselves falling down through where the floor used to be. They landed in another room, Kyle landing on top of Max in the process. Kyle stirred and opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked, lifting his head and looking around.

"Dude, you just fell through the floor," Allen said as if Kyle had never been unconscious in the first place.

"We're in Magneto's new hideout," Ray explained rolling his eyes.

Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the grinding of stone plates moving on the walls. The moving stones had revealed three holes on each wall. A ominous set of weaponry extended from each of the holes.

"Dude, there's no door!" Allen said, "We're gonna get toasted."

"Max, _make_ a door!" Ray shouted.

Max walked to one of the walls. He ripped the artillery from the wall and set his hands against the stone. The other sets of firepower began to focus on the four X-Men. Ray took out two of the guns with his blue volts of electricity. Allen was hit by a laser fired by one of the guns. He let out a yelp of pain, but the laser was merely absorbed by his unique skin.

"Dude, that was weird," he said as Kyle transformed into the giant lizard behind him.

Ray and Kyle got rid of the rest of the guns with Allen painfully deflecting lasers. When the guns were destroyed, Kyle, Allen, and Ray turned to Max. The stone was becoming lava. Max gestured for them to step back as the molten rock flowed towards them. Max's mutated body temperature enabled him to withstand the extreme heat. Max lifted Ray, Allen, and Kyle who was still in his huge reptilian form. He carried them through the hole he had made and dropped them onto the cold stone floor.

* * *

Roberto and Rahne had entered a room followed by Ruben and Sarah. All four of them looked around in confusion. They seemed to not have stepped into a room at all. They were standing in a thick forest. 

"It looks like we found the emergency exit," Ruben said to the rest of them.

"I don't think so," Rahne said pointedly, "The door we came through isn't there anymore."

They all turned to look for where they had entered. The door had disappeared.

"There's nothing to do except find our way through the forest," Roberto said, taking leadership immediately.

"Looks pretty safe to me," Ruben said looking around with a satisfied look on his face.

Roberto led the way followed by Rahne and Sarah. Ruben took the rear. They moved through the trees for what seemed like forever, when they caught sight of a large machine in the middle of a group of trees. Ruben walked up to it.

"Nice piece of machinery we got here," he said, tapping the metal skin of the machine, "What do you think it does?"

"Probably nothing good," Roberto said, looking suspiciously at the device, "I say we destroy it."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the machine made a series of noises and several strange beasts appeared. One with an extremely elongated head and long claws began to make its way towards Ruben. Ruben whirled around to look up at the creature. Roberto, Rahne, and Sarah had to quickly cover their eyes to avoid Ruben's sudden brilliant flash of light. They put their arms down to see if Ruben had succeeded. The creature had stopped, but the light didn't seem to have affected it. Sarah swiftly sent one of her blazing, green beams at the monster. Once again, the creature only stopped in its tracks.

"Keep away from them!" Roberto shouted as two more beasts moved behind Sarah and Rahne.

Roberto took in the sun's energy and began to glow with strength. He then ran towards a blue creature with a huge under bite. He slammed into the beast with intense force. He looked at it to check how much damage he had inflicted. He stepped back in astonishment as he realized that the monster was unscathed and walking directly at him.

"Uh, Roberto," Ruben said as he dodged a swinging claw, "I don't think this is working."

Sarah attempted to attack another creature advancing on Ruben. The creature's silvery skin only reflected the beam, sending it shooting towards the machine. The beam struck the machine near the top. The metal casing suddenly cracked and collapsed to the ground. The creatures that were scattered around the trees abruptly vanished. The four students' amazement grew as the forest disappeared as well. They had been in a room the whole time.

"That machine must have created images or something," Ruben said, mainly to himself.

"Well, we can get out of here now," Rahne indicated a door on the far side of the room. The other three followed her through the door.

* * *

Evan, Travis, and Ben stared around at the large, iron spheres that littered the room. They each examined the spheres carefully. 

"What do you think they're for?" Evan asked.

"Magneto probably uses them as projectiles to throw at people with his magnetic powers," Ben guessed.

"I wonder why he keeps them all in here then," Travis thought aloud.

Evan approached a smaller orb and called to the others, "Hey, look, it's an oddball!"

Travis and Ben were on their way towards Evan, when the undersized sphere popped open, revealing Pillbug, grinning sinisterly.

"Welcome to the orb chamber," Pillbug said in his terribly irritating voice, "Too bad that I have to make it so that you stay here."

With that, Pillbug curled back up into his iron globe and launched himself at Evan. Travis acted quickly and blasted Pillbug off course with one of his red bolts. Pillbug ricocheted off of the wall and clashed loudly with a number of the large, metal orbs. Ben reached out his hand and caught the ball of light that had been the energy powering the lights in the room. Ben hurled the ball at Pillbug, who had gotten up and was brushing himself off. The light hit him, sending him flying backwards into another wall. He then slid down the wall into one of the open spheres. Evan shot numerous spikes from his arms. The spikes punctured the open orb, trapping Pillbug inside it.

"Well, that takes care of him," Evan said triumphantly, while Pillbug struggled to get loose, "Those spikes should keep him there for a while."

* * *

Scott moved into a room followed by Peter and Jean. Peter was in full armor and Scott kept his finger on the button of visor just in case. The room had various tables scattered around with an assortment of different objects on them. Scott picked up a sheet of paper. 

"Check it out," he motioned for Jean and Peter to look at what he had found, "This is his list for mutants to recruit."

"Nucleo's the last one on his list," Jean pointed out, "That means he has what he wants."

"I, uh, picked this up over on that table," Peter said, showing them an experiment log of some sort, "It has all of Magneto's test results in it."

"Nucleo isn't in it," Jean made another observation, "That means Magneto hasn't run the experiment on him yet."

"If we hurry, we can stop Magneto from doing whatever he's going to do," Scott told the other two, "We need to hurry!"

Jean and Peter followed Scott from the room. Storm and Hank were standing outside of that doorway.

"What are you guys doing here?" Scott asked, surprised to see them.

"We just came from that room over there," Storm pointed to a door a few feet away, "Apparently, Magneto's experiment robs mutants of their powers. We found out that one of these rooms has the powers located in it."

"Some of the kids would have had to have gone through that room, though," Hank expressed his thoughts.

"We can't let Magneto steal Nucleo's power," Scott said frantically, "If he does, he'll be even more powerful than he is now."

* * *

Logan looked around at the switches on the walls of the room that he had entered. He resisted the temptation to flip every one of the switches and began to look for some sort of manual. He ground his teeth as he stared around at the switches. There was nothing else in the room. He walked up to one of the walls. The switches were labeled, but most of the labels were faded and indistinguishable. 

Logan looked at a switch with a legible label. The label read: Outer Door 8. Logan flipped the switch. He listened intently for any sign that it did anything. He heard a vague sound from far away, but he figured it was just one of the Brotherhood. He turned back to the switches. He scanned over them. His eyes came to rest on another intelligible label. It read: Light Switch. Logan snorted as he thought about who the idiot was who put the light switch in the middle of a wall full of toggles.

Logan turned towards the doorway opposite of the one he had entered. He figured that if the first switch didn't do anything, none of the other ones would. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway beyond the threshold.

* * *

Xavier had not entered the building. He had led Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and Bear around to the side of the building. He was now staring at a large, circular, iron door set into the wall. He knew it was locked without even checking it. 

"What now?" Mr. Kamon grumbled.

"We shall wait until Logan is ready," Xavier said, while behind him, Bear was tugging on Packrat's long tail.

"That untamed animal doesn't even know what he's supposed to do in there," Mr. Kamon retorted, "You didn't tell him to do anything."

"You know as well as I do, Eugene, that I know exactly what Logan is doing right now," Xavier replied, "He may not know it, but he will let us in.

"No touching," Packrat warned Bear.

"Cromitaferaklyvitalipumongo," Bear announced and walked towards Xavier's wheelchair.

Suddenly, the circular door began to open. The iron had parted to expose a dank tunnel that resembled a large ventilation system.

"This is a secret tunnel, so we will have to stay quiet," Xavier looked at Packrat and Bear in turn.

Xavier moved forward into the tunnel followed by Packrat. Mr. Kamon hobbled along behind him with Bear waddling at his side.

* * *

Magneto stood in front of the large tube with Nucleo floating inside it. The entire Brotherhood stood behind him, excluding Pillbug. 

"It seems that Charles has decided to pay us a little visit," Magneto said still staring at the tube, "I think we should give him a proper welcome."

The Brotherhood nodded and departed to head off the X-Men.


	8. Closing in on Magneto

Disclaimer: I'm really starting to wonder. Either there's a ton of people reading my story, but none of them are reviewing it, or there's just no one reading it. Anyway, I really owe my great success to. Wait! What great success?! Oh, well, if this was a success I would owe it to BobbyD12. Your reviews are perfect. The long reviews make up for the few that I have. Hey, people, this is nearing the close of the book. It's one of the last chapters. If enough people care, maybe I'll do a sequel. Ha! I can hear your cries of "NO NO NO! Don't write a sequel! I'll just DIE!". Yeah, that's what I thought. That's alright. I'm like Ruben. I don't take offense to anything. (disappears mysteriously)

* * *

Bobby and Rogue looked around the strange hallway, their pockets still filled with vials. Sam and Amara were behind them.

"It looks like this hallway just goes around in a big circle," Sam pointed out.

"Look at all the doors," Bobby said. The doors only covered the wall of the hallway they were on, but they seemed to completely coat the other side.

"Those doors probably lead back to where we started," Rogue guessed.

"Hey, look!" Amara exclaimed, "The doors are opening!"

All the doors on their side had begun to creak open. Bobby, Rogue, Sam, and Amara were relieved when they realized that the people coming through the doors were only the other groups of X-Men.

"Hey, it's a reunion," Aaron commented.

"Who are they?" Kurt pointed at the powerless mutants who were following the twins, Melanie, and Siryn.

"Allow me," Shawn said as Aaron opened his mouth, "This is Cory, Frank, and Lorenzo."

"Lorenzo," Ruben grinned, "I like it."

Lorenzo gave Ruben a strange look.

"What are their powers?" Ray asked impatiently.

"Nothing right now," Aaron explained, "Magneto's experiment worked on them, so he has their powers somewhere."

"What do the powers look like when they're taken out?" Amara asked, bracing herself, "Is it gross?"

"Our powers take the form of a swirling, orange liquid when they are expelled from our bodies," Frank explained.

"Dude, what did he say?" Allen asked looking extremely befuddled.

"Are these them?" Sam inquired, taking the orange vials from his pocket.

Lorenzo rushed up to Sam and snatched them from his grasp. He stared at the labels on them. He selected one of them and handed the other two back to Sam. He pulled the stopper from the top of the vial and raised his hand to drink the liquid.

"Wait!" Scott shouted, "Don't drink that!"

"Porqué no?" Lorenzo turned to Scott, speaking in his Mexican accent, "It is mine. I want it back."

"Drinking it might not be a good idea," Scott warned, "You might have to inject it into your bloodstream or something."

"I don't even want to think about that!" Amara shuddered.

"Fine! I'll wait!" Lorenzo scowled at Scott, "But not too long!"

"The doors run all the way around this middle section," Jean informed everyone, mainly to keep Scott or Lorenzo from hurting each other, "We just need to split into our groups again."

"Scott!" Peter tapped Scott on the shoulder, "I just remembered something in that experiment log we found. It said to consume the liquid to get the power back."

"Oh," Scott's face flushed, "I forgot about that. Sorry, Lorenzo."

Lorenzo just grunted and downed the vial in an instant. Frank and Cory followed suit and drained their vials.

"I feel better already," Cory commented.

"Right, shall we continue?" Aaron said rather anxiously.

Cory, Frank, and Lorenzo split into their own group while everyone else moved into the small hallways leading to the various doors.

* * *

Bobby's group stopped and looked into the small, circular window of the locked door in front of them. They could see a room with the basic lab furniture inside. At the far end of the room, there was another door that was closed. The group could easily make out a number of ladders that extended beyond their sight, on the other side of the door.

"So, how are we getting in?" Bobby turned to the rest of his group.

"I could probably break it down," Sam suggested, "But that might be too loud, plus it would give me a headache."

"Amara, do you think you could melt the door?" Rogue asked.

"Well, I might, but it..." Amara was interrupted by a voice behind them.

"Forgive my inquisitiveness, but isn't that vandalism?" the group of students turned around to see Mosquito hovering in the hallway, blocking their way out. Pyro stood behind him adjusting the flamethrowers attached to his wrists.

"And vandals should be punished, right mate?" Pyro turned to Mosquito.

"You're the vandal!" Amara shouted at Pyro.

"I'm an arsonist, not a vandal," Pyro explained, smirking.

Amara hurled two balls of flame at him in her anger. Pyro simply lifted his hand and the fireballs stopped and hurtled back towards their owner. Bobby quickly froze them in the air. Sam caught the frozen flames before they could strike Amara.

"I'm quite sure that Magneto wouldn't mind having more test subjects," Mosquito reached out his hand toward Sam. Sam threw the frozen flames. They collided with Mosquito's face. Mosquito hovered backwards clutching his head. Pyro shot two jets of flame from the barrels of his flamethrowers. The flames grew to form a dragon which filled the width of the hallway. The dragon opened its mouth and breathed more fire into the air. Bobby extended his arms and launched his icy beams at the dragon. The dragon gave off steam as it transformed from fire to ice. Pyro and Mosquito stared at the icy dragon blocking their way.

Without warning, Sam blasted right through the middle of the dragon and knocked Pyro and Mosquito to the ground. Amara was busy melting the locked door. Pyro and Mosquito got to their feet. Sam flew back through the frozen dragon, causing it to collapse. The four students ran through the hole where the melted door once stood, Amara still encased in flame. The reached the door on the other side of the room.

"It's locked!" Rogue exclaimed, turning the doorknob fruitlessly.

"Amara, can you melt this door, too?" Sam asked, turning to Amara, "We'll hold those two off with the vials."

Amara set to work on the door while the other three pulled the empty vials from their pockets.

"What you going to do with those?" Pyro scoffed, "Stuff us inside them?"

"No, no, no," Mosquito tapped Pyro on the shoulder, "Don't taunt them! They're going to thr..."

He ducked as a vial flew over his head. Pyro and Mosquito soon found themselves being pummeled with vials. Pyro's shock wore off quickly and he began torching the vials before they could make contact.

"We're all out of vials!" Bobby complained, "Are you done with the door?"

"Yeah, let's go," Amara let the other three go first and then followed them into the room full of the ladders leading upward. Pyro and Mosquito immediately ran into the lab room. Pyro looked upward into the ladder room. He spotted Amara still sheathed in fire. Smiling, he made a downward arm movement. Amara suddenly felt herself being pulled down from the ladder. She plummeted towards the ground, landing in Pyro's arms.

"Keep going!" she shouted to the others, "I'll take care of..."

Mosquito removed his fingers from her forehead.

"What say we take her to Magneto," Mosquito suggested, "The secret way."

"Sounds like a good idea to me, mate," Pyro agreed and they began to walk the opposite way. Mosquito removed a two-way radio from his belt and activated it.

"You've got three children coming your way," Mosquito warned Magneto through the radio, "Keep a good watch."

He deactivated the radio and returned it to his belt. They continued down the hallway in silence.

* * *

Jubilee, Kurt, Kitty, and Louis approached the door at the end of the small hallway. It was obviously locked.

"Ha!" Kurt laughed, "They think that this will keep us out?"

"They, like, totally don't know who they're dealing with," Kitty agreed.

"Does this mean I can't blast down the door?" Jubilee asked.

"I know what you mean," Louis said, "We don't really get to use our powers."

"You're just jealous," Kurt commented, "Everyone ready?"

"If you were as quick as me, you'd have finished with Magneto and on your way home," Pietro was standing a few feet away from the group. Lance and Gambit turned the corner to join him.

"Why aren't you home in bed?" Lance taunted.

"I'm not really that tired," Louis retorted.

Lance closed his mouth, apparently not being able to think up a good comeback. Instead, he stomped his foot on the floor. The room shook violently sending everyone but Lance to the ground.

"Watch it, Salad Head," Pietro protested, criticizing the glass helmet that Lance wore over his head.

Kurt and Kitty got to their feet, each of them taking hold of either Jubilee or Louis. Kurt teleported behind the door while Kitty phased through it. All four students now stood behind the door. Jubilee made a face through the window at Pietro, Lance, and Gambit.

"They can't get us now," she remarked.

Gambit walked up the door and placed his hands on it.

"See, he doesn't know what to do now," she continued.

"Uh, Jubilee, I'd step away from the door," Kurt said, knowing exactly what Gambit was doing.

"Huh, why?" Jubilee turned to face the other three, Kurt pulling Louis backward.

Kitty grabbed Jubilee's arm and dragged her away from the door just as it exploded, sending debris flying through the room. Gambit, Lance, and Pietro stood in doorway, smirking. Gambit took a deck of cards from an inside pocket of his trench coat.

"Care for a game of Poker?" he asked as the top card began to glow. He flicked his wrist, sending the card towards the small group. The card's detonation sent the four students flying into the walls. Louis stood up, brushed himself off, and turned into the biggest Venus flytrap anyone had ever seen. Jubilee shot a beam of sparks and tiny flames at Pietro. He simply shot across the room in the blink of an eye. Gambit began flicking cards through the air, destroying everything in sight. Kurt teleported behind Lance and kicked him in the back of the head.

"You stupid rodent!" Lance turned on Kurt, "I'll show you!"

Lance's eyes rolled up into his head as the ground began to shake again. Big columns of the floor suddenly shot from the ground. Kurt teleported just in time to avoid getting pummeled by the ruined floor. Kitty was easily avoiding debris and flying cards by phasing through them. She shoved Gambit who tripped over a column of floor and fell to the ground.

Jubilee was still attempting to hit Pietro with her firework beams. Pietro was zooming around the room, laughing and taunting Jubilee. He was so busy taunting, that he ran right into the huge Venus flytrap. The flytrap wrapped Pietro up with vines and began to slam him into the nearest wall, all the while, Pietro making unintelligible protests. Jubilee changed her target to Lance who received a shock when he was thrown off his feet by a sparking beam. The Venus flytrap hurled Pietro across the room. He landed in a crumpled heap next to Gambit.

"Come on!" Kurt shouted, "Let's go up these ladders!"

The four students ran to the ladders and began climbing. The three Brotherhood members got to their feet and ran after them.

"They're too far up the ladders!" Lance complained.

"I can catch up to them in no time," Pietro bragged.

"You may be able to run fast, but I'm sure you probably can't climb as fast," Lance scowled.

"I'll report it to Magneto," Gambit said, pulling a two-way radio from his belt.

* * *

Shawn peered through the circular window into the room full of weird supplies.

"This should be no problem," he said turning to his brother.

"I agree," Aaron said, "They think that they can hold the Kerr team out."

Aaron bowed to Shawn, Siryn, and Melanie. He then transformed into a termite and crawled under the door. The other three watched as Aaron's face appeared in the window. He smiled at them. He looked around. He could be heard saying, "Where's the door switch?" Aaron suddenly looked up. His eyes widened and he transformed into a rather large frog. He began to hop up on the furniture knocking things on the floor. All the while, bright balls of light were flying in every direction.

"Great," muttered Shawn, "Photoman's here."

"Guess who else is here," Toad said from behind them. Siryn, Shawn, and Melanie turned around to see Toad crouching in front of Blob, both of them smiling.

"Even better," Shawn grumbled, "Stinkball and Tub o' Lard."

"Hey!" Blob yelled, "I'm not a Stinkball!"

"Yeah, I agree," Shawn said as he jumped out of the way of Blob, "Toad's the Stinkball. _You're_ the Tub o' Lard."

Blob turned away from the huge dent he had made in the wall to face Shawn. He let out a yell and charged him again. Shawn disappeared. Blob stopped and looked around.

"Where'd he go?" Blob's anger was growing. Toad shot his tongue out towards Melanie. It suddenly stopped and slammed into the wall. Toad yelped in pain. Shawn reappeared holding Toad's tongue. He smiled and disappeared again. Melanie began to shrink into a golden mist.

"Huh?" Blob said as the mist entered his ear.

"Uh oh," Toad said, his tongue still out. Blob reached out and grabbed his tongue. Toad screamed as Blob tugged hard on his tongue sending him careening into the far wall. The gold mist exited Blob's ear and changed back into Melanie.

* * *

Meanwhile, inside the room, Aaron the frog was narrowly avoiding the blasts from Photon. Photon ground his teeth in frustration. Two more guns sprouted from his arms. He began firing with them combined with his triple-barrel weapons. Aaron hopped behind a large metal pot. He transformed into a centipede.

"See if you can catch me now, Photoman," Aaron thought to himself and scuttled out from behind the pot. Photon hadn't noticed and kept firing at the pot. Aaron scurried between Photon's legs. He stopped moving as soon as he was behind him.

"Argh! What was Shawn's advice?," Aaron thought, "Shawn gives me too much advice. I can never think of it when I need it."

Photon stopped shooting and looked around.

"Oh yeah!" Aaron felt the light bulb go on in his head, "Use your imagination!"

Two more guns activated at Photon's shoulders. A cupboard exploded as it was struck by another shot from Photon. A doughy substance began to seep from the shattered cupboard. Aaron began to grow. His body took the form of a giant snake. The end of his tail twisted to form a scorpion's tail. Two feathery wings grew from what were his shoulders. To finish the transformation, four clawed feet were shaped to hold him up.

Photon turned around. Aaron stared at him through the yellow slits that were his eyes. His forked tongue flicked in and out of his mouth. Photon backed away. His shock only lasted a few seconds, for he began firing his guns repeatedly in Aaron's direction. Aaron's elongated body allowed him to twist into contorted positions. He easily avoided the lasers and photons burning the air around him. He quickly approached Photon moving through the storm of deadly light around him. Photon had backed into the wall. Aaron's lethal tail swung swiftly and struck Photon's armored shoulder. The attack had only left a dent. Aaron drew back from a kick from Photon. A very familiar weapon sprung from Photon's back.

Aaron flapped his wings and lifted himself into the air. He moved in to strike, but the weapon on Photon's back began to glow. A split-second later a thin beam protruded at incredible speed and collided with Aaron's left wing. The wing burst sending feathers everywhere. Aaron hit the ground and transformed back into himself. He clutched his shoulder in pain. Photon walked towards him smiling maliciously. Aaron suddenly found himself looking into one of Photon's triple-barrel firearms.

"Uh, do you think we could talk about this over tea or something?" Aaron said painfully.

* * *

Blob had just gotten Shawn in a headlock and was cutting off his air supply. Toad was unsuccessfully trying to catch Melanie.

"Yo, Blob!" Toad yelled at him, "You can get _two_ people in headlocks! Couldn't _you_ even figure that one out?"

Blob nodded and smiled. He walked towards Siryn, still keeping the suffocating Shawn in the headlock. Siryn backed into a corner. Blob laughed as he reached out to give her Shawn's treatment. Siryn had no choice. She screamed. Blob dropped Shawn and covered his ears. Toad completely lost his concentration and did a face plant into the floor. Melanie and the recovering Shawn blocked the sound as much as they could by covering their ears.

Photon looked up to see the circular window on the door shatter. He didn't have time to figure out why it shattered because his ears were immediately pierced by the shrill scream coming from the other side of the door. Aaron also felt the extra pain and tried to cover his shoulder and his ears at the same time but failed. Photon shot a laser from his shoulder which blasted down the door. He had to stop the screaming.

He walked through the doorway, wincing from the pain in his head. It felt like his brain was going to explode. He turned to the red-haired girl who was emitting the painful scream. He lifted one of his triple-barrel guns. He suddenly found himself flying backward and sliding down the wall. He looked up to see Toad smirking at him. The smirk was wiped off his face as a gold mist left his ear. Siryn stopped screaming.

"Come on! I can carry Aaron!" Shawn instructed.

"Up the ladder?!" Aaron protested, "You'll drop me!"

With that, Aaron turned into a seven-legged spider the size of a card table and began to crawl up the ladder room wall. Shawn, Melanie, and Siryn began to climb up the ladder after him. Toad hopped into the room and began climbing up the ladder room wall after the four students. Photon stayed at the bottom of the ladders, firing after the young X-Men; in his rage, however, he missed every time.

"Uh, I'll tell Magneto," Blob said. He took his two-way radio from his belt.

* * *

"So how are we going through _this_ door?" Ray turned to the other three students in his group.

"Dude," Allen shook his head, laughing at him, "I can _fit_ through it."

Ray didn't say anything so Allen moved next to the side of the door. He pressed his hand against the crack in between the door and the wall. As the other three watched, he gradually slid through the crack. His face appeared in the window.

"Dude, which button is the one to open this thing?"

Ray groaned. If anything, Allen must have gotten dumber by trying to cram his head through small spaces.

"There's only one button," Ray said impatiently.

"Is it for the door?" Allen asked.

"What do you think?" Ray asked, getting more annoyed by the second.

"Uh, I don't know, dude," Allen stopped smiling and got what looked like a concentrated look on his face, "It might set off the alarm or something."

"Just press it," Ray glared at him.

"Ok, dude, if you say so," Allen pressed the button next to the door.

The other three walked into the room and looked around. It had torture equipment lying in various places.

"This looks like a pleasant room," Kyle commented.

"I don't think so, dude," Allen said, checking the room for pleasantness.

"Great," Ray muttered, "Here come the _pleasant_ people."

Coming down the hallway to their room were the last people anyone would want to see. Zombie and Hammerhead, led by Sabretooth, were walking towards them.

"Quick! Lock the door!" Ray instructed.

Max pressed the button for the door. He picked up a chair that was plugged into the wall. He yanked the cord out of the wall and placed the chair in front of the door.

"That probably won't hold them for long," Kyle informed him.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, they could hear the door being ripped open. It was only a moment before the chair in front of the door was hurled out of the way. Sabretooth let out a roar and charged Max. Max stood his ground and took hold of Sabertooth's hair as soon as he was close enough. Sabretooth only had a moment to realize what happened, because his hair had suddenly ignited. He began racing around the room trying to put out the flames.

Zombie had picked up two long poles from the floor. The poles were covered in spikes except for the handles. Zombie swung one of the poles in the air. Ray ducked and the pole collided with the chair with the wire. The chair was suddenly lost from view in a shower of sparks. The chair continued to emit sparks as Ray stopped Zombie's attack with a jolt of electricity. Allen rolled out of the way as Zombie his the ground.

Hammerhead was in a tussle with Kyle who had transformed into the huge lizard. Kyle was holding Hammerhead back to keep from being severely bitten, when Sabretooth tripped over a large clamp-like device and collided with both Kyle and Hammerhead. The device toppled over and landed on Allen, who grunted with discomfort.

Max lifted a guillotine blade and hurled it at Zombie. Zombie was brushing himself off when the blade severed his torso from his waist. The top half of his body hit the ground with a thud. The young X-Men received a surprise when Zombie's torso lifted itself back onto its waist. Zombie smiled as his skin mended itself around his torso. He pulled the guillotine blade out of the wall, where it had embedded itself, and threw it back towards Max. The blade was almost to its target, when Allen jumped from nowhere and collided with it. The blade's speed sent both it and Allen into the wall. The blade pinned Allen to the wall but no damage was done to his extraordinary skin. Max punched down the door to the ladder room. He pulled the blade from the wall releasing Allen.

"Ray, take Allen and go," Max instructed, "Me and Kyle can hold them off."

"Whatever," said Ray as Kyle let out a low growl, "If you insist. Come on, Allen."

Ray sent another bolt of electricity into Sabretooth and dragged Allen into the ladder room. Max and Kyle turned to their adversaries as the other two climbed the ladder.

* * *

Roberto, Rahne, Ruben, and Sarah looked into the circular window of the door in front of them. It looked like a large janitor's closet.

"It's locked," Roberto informed them, "And there's no sunlight for me to use my power."

"I can do it," Sarah said quietly.

The rest of them stood back as she burned a hole through the door with her green beams. There was now a sizzling opening in the middle of the door.

"That's awesome," Ruben said to himself.

The four students stepped through the hole into the room. Rahne transformed into the large, red wolf and sniffed the air. She growled and looked into a corner of the room. There was a huge pile of cardboard boxes stacked in that corner.

"Who goes there?" Roberto asked threateningly, "Show yourself!"

"You asked for it!" Paste shouted, jumping from behind the boxes and launching two globs of glue towards the group. Sarah burned one out of the air with a beam. The other glob plastered Roberto to the wall.

"You can't do that!" Ruben exclaimed. He reached out his hand and Paste's hands flew to his eyes. Roberto, Rahne, and Sarah uncovered their eyes. Sarah burned the glue off of Roberto who slid onto the ground.

"I can help," Ruben insisted, dodging a stumbling Paste. He sent another flash of light through the air, Rahne and Sarah covering their eyes again just in time. Roberto took the light energy and began to glow. He got up and began to charge Paste. Paste had just gotten his eyesight back, when Roberto slammed him into the wall. Paste pushed Roberto away but was slammed backward again by the red wolf. He pushed the wolf away and shot two more splotches of glue at both Roberto and the wolf. Roberto suddenly found himself covered in glue again. He looked over from the floor to see Rahne, still in her wolf form, plastered to the ground. He struggled to get loose, but he knew it was useless.

Paste smiled and expelled a large ball of the sticky substance towards Sarah and Ruben. Sarah simply burned a hole through it with a beam. The beam kept moving through the glue and hammered Paste in the chest. He screeched in pain as he tripped and fell to the floor. Paste reached out his hand and snagged one of the boxes in the corner with a handful of glue. Still holding the glue, Paste swung his hand forward. The box, still attached to the glob, hurtled towards Ruben and Sarah. Ruben dived sideways, knocking Sarah to the ground, but keeping them both from being crushed by the box.

"Wow," Ruben said stunned, "I didn't think I could do that."

The box lay in pieces. What was in the box appeared to be a bomb of some sort. Paste got up and began flinging multiple balls of glue at Ruben and Sarah. The two young X-Men got up and began evading the sticky projectiles. Sarah lifted her hands and started to blast as many globs as possible. Ruben looked around the room as he ducked under the flying goo. He took a step backward and slipped on a mop that was lying on the floor.

"Hey," Ruben chuckled and picked up the mop, "Stanley Spadowski!"

Paste was taken by surprise when a crazed Ruben suddenly cracked him over the head with a mop. He staggered backward into a table with a tennis ball, a wrench, and a large mirror on top of it. Paste fell along with the table and the contents upon it. Sarah had just launched another beam at Paste, when he knocked over the table. The beam instead hit the mirror which cracked. The beam multiplied and shot throughout the room.

Ruben suddenly found himself looking at half of a smoking mop as one of the beams sliced off the other half. Roberto and Rahne were released from their pasty prison by one of the stray beams. The third of the beams collided with the bomb that had been laying on the floor. The bomb immediately ignited, emitting a faint hissing noise. Roberto, being the only one to notice, ran to the bomb and picked it up. He began to run towards the door that they had come through, but didn't pay enough attention to his path. The tennis ball had bounced over from the table and landed near the door.

"Roberto, look out!" Rahne yelled, way too late. Roberto slipped on the tennis ball, the bomb soaring from his arms. Everyone watched as the bomb slammed into the far wall. It exploded on impact, sending everyone flying backwards. Paste hurtled through the ladder room door. Unfortunately for him, he kept going and smashed through the opposite door, simultaneously obtaining injuries from ladders.

Roberto looked up to see the wrench from the table racing towards him, propelled by the explosion. He felt an intense pain in his head as the wrench made contact with it. He looked over to see Rahne running towards him while Ruben crouched over Sarah's unconscious form. He closed his eyes and blacked out.

"Now what do we do?" Ruben asked, obviously panicking.

"Well, I can't carry either Roberto or Sarah by myself," Rahne informed him.

"Oh, that's comforting," Ruben made a weird face, "Ok, I have an idea."

"Uh," Rahne flinched, "_You_ have an idea?"

"Yeah, so what?" Ruben said, taking no offense, "What's wrong with that?"

"Um, nothing," Rahne answered quickly. It wasn't a very good time to offend anyone.

"Good," Ruben began, "I guess if I put Sarah on my back, I can also carry Roberto's feet. That way, you can carry his shoulders."

"Ok, sounds good," Rahne agreed.

Rahne helped Ruben lift Sarah onto his back. They then continued with the plan and lifted Roberto.

"We can't go up the ladders," Rahne stated, "We'll just have to try to get out of here."

"Ok," Ruben agreed and began to sing quietly to himself as they walked out the door. He looked back to see flames spreading throughout the room, "There's somethin' gross in the fridge today. It's green and growing hair. It's been there since July. Oooo..."

* * *

Travis had just blasted down the door with a "flare". He walked into the room followed by Evan and Ben. In the dim light, they could see that the room looked just like a normal living room. There were comfortable-looking armchairs around an unlit fireplace. There were also a number of totem poles place around the room.

"Who keeps these things anymore?" Evan commented, "They went out of style years ago."

"I think their pretty neat," Travis said examining one with a frightened look on its face.

"Whatever," Evan looked around the room, "It's a bit dark in here isn't it?"

"I can take a hint," Ben said, making a hand gesture toward the lights. They immediately grew brighter.

"This looks comfy," Evan sat down in one of the armchairs. To his surprise, he found himself looking at Storm sitting across from him in a different chair.

"Hello, Evan," she said while Evan got over his shock.

"What are you doing here?" he stuttered.

"Beast and I became split up and I came to look for someone in here," Storm replied.

"How'd you get in?" Travis asked looking around the room, "I don't see any other exits."

"I used that door," Storm pointed across the room to a closed, wooden door.

Travis, Evan, and Ben turned to look at it.

"It looks like a closet door to me," Ben said confused. He turned back around, "Huh? Where'd she go?"

Evan and Travis turned around to find that Storm had disappeared.

"Do you think we're seeing things?" Evan suggested.

"Maybe Magneto recruited a mutant who makes people hallucinate," Travis put in.

All three jumped as they heard footsteps enter the room. They whirled around to find Packrat crouching next to the door they had broken down.

"Did Storm just leave that way?" Ben asked him.

"Brine doesn't know what you is talking from," Packrat stated apparently confused.

"I guess not," Ben walked to the wooden door.

"How come you're not with Professor X anymore?" Evan asked Packrat.

"Tunnel clapsed. Us's stuck in filth. Brine gets away to find safe place where no hurting beasties lie," Packrat replied

"The professor's stuck?!" Ben exclaimed as he turned around.

"What Brine says," Packrat concluded.

"We have to go help him," Ben turned to Travis and Evan.

"No, no, no," Packrat smiled, "Brine can't let you do that."

"What? Why not?" Evan asked incredulously.

"Because Brine isn't Brine," Brine replied. As the three X-Men watched, Packrat's tail disappeared along with his large coat. His facial hair receded into his head to reveal blue skin. Packrat stood up to his full height. Mystique now stood where Packrat had been crouching moments before.

"What'd you do to the professor?" Evan demanded.

"**_I_ **didn't do anything to your professor," Mystique grimaced, "I made that whole story up."

"So the professor's alright?" Ben asked hesitantly.

"I didn't say that," Mystique snapped, "How am I supposed to know what's happening to your precious professor. My power isn't mind reading."

"You're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on!" Evan threatened.

"You must be a fool to fight _me_," Mystique scoffed.

"Yeah, we would be wasting a lot of time doing that, wouldn't we?" Travis shrugged.

"Enough of your comments!" Mystique retorted angrily and promptly transformed into Toad. The phony Toad jumped onto the ceiling and ran to the other side of the room. It's tongue shot out of its mouth and wrapped around Ben's legs. Ben suddenly found himself being launched into a closet.

The fake Toad made a giant leap and landed next to the closet. It slammed the doors and snapped a chair leg from one of the armchairs. It then proceeded to place the leg onto the handles of the closet, preventing Ben from escaping. Evan and Travis watched as the false Toad began to grow. The form of Toad had enlarged to form an extremely tall man who was covered in dark red armor. He wore a dome-shaped helmet that was latched to his armor.

"It's Juggernaut!" Evan exclaimed.

"Jug of Milk, what?" Travis said, expressing his confusion.

"He's sort of a mutant and he's really, really powerful." Evan explained as the newly formed Juggernaut began to walk towards them.

"I guess that explains it," Travis took cover behind an armchair as one of the fake Juggernaut's giant fists made a crater in the floor. Evan shot a few spikes at Juggernaut, but only succeeded in giving the gigantic menace a good laugh. Travis took this to an advantage and blasted the closet door to pieces, freeing Ben. Ben removed a flashlight from his belt and turned it on. A ball of light flew from the tip of the flashlight into Ben's extended hand.

The copied Juggernaut was still busy trying to crush Evan under his foot. Evan was dodging the huge feet as fast as he could, but it was obvious that he was running out of energy. Ben threw the light sphere at a nearby totem pole. The totem pole toppled over into Juggernaut's path. Juggernaut, in his overconfidence, didn't notice the fallen tiki face and stepped on it. As heavy as Juggernaut was, the totem pole still sent him slipping onto the floor. Juggernaut's form shrank into Pietro and took off around the room.

"Great," Travis complained, "How's this going to work?"

"I'll take care of it," Evan assured him.

Many long spikes grew from Evan's arms. He pointed them at a wall and fired them. The spikes embedded themselves in the wall, creating a wall of their own. The phony Pietro came around on his revolution around the room. Running at top speed, he received a surprise when he collided with the recently formed wall. Pietro transformed back into Mystique.

"You are proving to be very difficult," Mystique said with loathing in her voice, "It looks like I'll have to use more than just brute force."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Evan scowled.

"Beats me," Travis scratched his head.

Mystique moved to one of the nearby armchairs and reached under it. She then withdrew a fairly large photon gun and pointed it at the three X-Men.

"That's cheating!" Evan protested.

"What, you think I don't know that?" Mystique sneered, "I don't have to play by the rules in my own game. Now prepare to meet your end."

"That's looking on the positive side of things," Travis muttered.

Mystique pressed a button on the side of the artillery and the sound of it powering up could be heard.

"Let's see. I think I'll shoot you first," Mystique smiled, pointing the gun at Evan, "Just because you've been so annoying."

Mystique pulled the trigger. At the exact same moment, Ben made a hand gesture towards the gun. Evan shut his eyes. Travis blinked.

"What's the matter with this thing?" Mystique raged, "Oh, what's the use?"

She threw the gun aside and aimed a kick at Ben. Travis quickly hurled a "flare" at her. Mystique was thrown backwards into the far wall.

"I was outnumbered," she fumed, looking up at them furiously.

"Since when do _you_ play by the rules?" Evan commented.

Mystique ignored him and turned into Allen.

"Later, dudes," said the fake Allen and then slid into a crack in the floor.

"Like I said, she doesn't play by the rules," Evan concluded.

"We'd better go see if the professor's really alright," Ben suggested.

"Now I'm paranoid," Travis mumbled.


	9. Ultimate Destruction

Disclaimer: We're reaching the last few chapters of this story now. Hope that anyone who's actually reading it likes it. Anyway, I have some business to cover. Firstly, thank you to Pyro-hi! A new reviewer! Always happy to get new reviews even if I still don't have all that much. BUT I DON'T MIND A BIT! Ha ha ha. Pyro-hi, just so you know, in X-Men Evolution, Amara isn't so grossed out and Ray isn't so rude. Thought that you might need to know that. Now, to BobbyD12, Ben Flemming (or Outlet) is a pretty nice guy. His looks on the other hand. His haircut preference is like this: he has a shaved head! If he had hair, it would be red, because in fact he has a short goatee on his chin. But, anyway, his mutant power is this: he and/or anything that runs on electricity. He can also turn the electricity into a physical form which he throws at people (which is why he carries a flashlight). That's pretty much it about Ben. If I think of anything else, I'll let it be known. Oh, and I don't know about this killing things. Just thinking about killing off one of my precious characters just makes me want to shove my hand in a meat grinder while smashing my head against a cement wall, simoultaneously standing in a mountain of poison ivy in a diseased mosquito infested area. Maybe in my sequel, (I am going to write a sequel by the way, I'll get to that later) yeah, maybe I'll kill someone. Pleasant, eh? Anyway, yeah, I've just started my sequel. To this that is. I haven't written anything else. Why do you think my success is so great? ((sarcasm hint, hint) You see, I had already had this entire story written and have been randomly posting chapters. WHOA! My disclaimer's almost as long as this chapter! I'm not even going to get a chance to say goodbye! Well. (disappears mysteriously)

* * *

Xavier stared at the intersection in the tunnel. This was the sixth intersection in the tunnel so far. Packrat was crouched next to him, sniffing the air. Bear sat on the ground singing a nonsense song while receiving dirty looks from Mr. Kamon.

"We will go left," Xavier stated.

"How much more do we have to go?" Mr. Kamon grumbled, "It's not like I'm as fit as these young nippers."

"_I_ has to go," Bear declared.

"It'd be different if I was forty again," Mr. Kamon continued, ignoring Bear.

"We should not have to much more to go," Xavier answered him.

"Ugly stinkpot lurks," Packrat hissed.

"Speak English, rag ball," Mr. Kamon demanded.

"Bushes eat mushy cheese in paper clothes," Bear sang.

"Is lurking in tunnel waiting to slice," Packrat mumbled.

"Brian is correct," Xavier affirmed, "There is someone waiting ahead. Be prepared."

The four mutants continued through the tunnel, but more cautiously than before. Every once in a while, they would hear remote noises. A distant explosion startled the group.

"Boom!" Bear yelled excitedly.

"Shut up, Fuzzweed!" Mr. Kamon snapped.

There was a swift movement farther up in the tunnel. Packrat made a noise through his teeth and pulled a scythe from his belt, one of the many objects that he had brought with him (including the scythe, half of a hockey stick, three cogs, a dog leash, and a flask of extremely old whiskey). The group moved a few more feet. Suddenly, a dagger flew towards them from the darkness. Packrat's tail lashed out and caught it cleanly. The shadowy form of Massacre walked silently out of the gloom. Packrat let out a screech of rage, but didn't move.

"Keep it up, rat, and I'll have no choice but to put you out of commission," Massacre warned in his raspy voice.

"No respect these days," Mr. Kamon complained, "As you kids say, bring it on!"

"Keep your mouth shut, geezer," Massacre countered.

Mr. Kamon let out a war cry and clenched his fist tightly. When he opened it, there were bright, hot coals in his hand.

"They didn't call me Old King Coal for nothin'!" he yelled and threw the coals at Massacre.

Massacre simply contorted himself to avoid getting hit with the searing projectiles. At the same time, he threw another few daggers from his large collection on his belt. Packrat whipped out his damaged hockey stick and waved it at the oncoming daggers. The daggers punctured the end of the hockey stick giving it a medieval weapon look. Packrat took off towards Massacre wielding the scythe and the hockey stick of death.

"Brian, stop!" Xavier tried to stop him, but it was no use.

"Crazy fool's gonna get himself killed," Mr. Kamon commented.

"Zeeblyboppers," Bear said, amazed.

Massacre jumped backwards in surprise to Packrat's attack. Packrat made a leap and landed a kick in Massacre's chest. Massacre fell backwards, but simply rolled over into a standing position.

"You're gonna die, rat!" Massacre shouted.

Packrat let out a sinister laugh and jumped through a vent in the ceiling. Massacre quickly followed him.

"That mad beast can't take that gangster on alone," Mr. Kamon protested to Xavier, "Once you serve someone food, they're family."

"Calm down, Eugene," Xavier assured him, "I'm sure Brian is capable of handling Massacre. We can still help him by getting out of this tunnel and finding the end of that ventilation system."

"We kills dagga man!" Bear yelled fiercely.

* * *

Scott blasted the door down with an optic blast. He entered the room followed by Jean and Peter. The room was large and circular.

"Reminds me of the danger room," Scott commented.

There were also a few other doors scattered around the wall. Two of them burst open. A third was ripped off its hinges. Logan walked through one of them and sniffed the air. Hank, followed by Storm, entered through another door. Tom walked through the last doorway carrying the damaged door.

"What are you guys doing here?" Jean asked the four X-Men.

"Probably the same reason you're here," Logan responded, "Just followed the hallway."

"What could they possibly use this room for?" Storm asked, looking around.

Her question was suddenly answered when an iron ball flew through the air and landed in the middle of the room. The ball unrolled to reveal Pillbug. He was smirking and carrying a small device in his hand.

"Welcome to the Combat Cyborg Chamber," Pillbug said, staring at them with his jet black eyes, "Here you'll experience the exciting, but painful occasion of the Cyborgs."

"What do you want, Sleazeball?!" Logan asked threateningly.

"Just giving you a tour, that's all," Pillbug grinned.

"You'd better get out of here," Storm warned, "You are extremely outnumbered."

"Am I?" Pillbug raised his eyebrows. He pressed a button on the gadget in his hand. Suddenly, holes began to form in the floor.

"On your left and right," Pillbug continued, "you'll notice that the Cyborgs are kept in the floor of this room."

Sure enough, the X-Men found themselves being surrounded by mechanical creatures that were climbing from the holes in the floor.

"As you can see, it is not _I_ who is outnumbered," Pillbug concluded, "It is you."

With that, he curled up into his ball and hurtled straight for the X-Men. Scott dived out of the way only to land in the arms of a particularly large Cyborg. The Cyborg lifted Scott by his legs and threw him a good distance away.

A tall Cyborg pulled two photon guns from its sides and pointed them at Hank. Hank began to hop around on his hands to avoid being fried by the Cyborg's closely accurate shots.

Logan sliced through two short, huge-handed Cyborgs and looked around quickly. The Cyborgs seemed to be coming endlessly from the holes in the floor. If he could get inside one of the holes he might be able to stop the Cyborgs. He looked up. The familiar iron ball was soaring toward him. He leaped on top of a spidery-looking Cyborg just escaping the painful pounding of Pillbug. The iron ball kept moving, narrowly missing Storm and Jean. The ball was suddenly seized by Tom's massive hand. An opening appeared in the ball where Pillbug peered out to see what had just happened. The opening immediately closed, however, when Pillbug caught sight of his captor. Tom lifted the ball high in the air and slammed it down creating a crater in the floor.

Jean lifted a Cyborg with her mind and send it careening into another group of Cyborgs. Storm formed a cyclone and let it go about its business while she fried a Cyborg's circuits with a lightning bolt. Glancing over towards the other X-Men, she caught a brief glimpse of Logan jumping into one of the Cyborg holes. She quickly glided over to Jean to tell her.

"Logan has gone into the Cyborg hole," Storm said to Jean.

"What? What's in there?" Jean said incredulously.

"It is possible that the Cyborgs are being made in there," Storm guessed.

"Someone should help him," Jean insisted.

"He won't like it, but you're right," Storm agreed.

"Whoever gets there first," Jean suggested.

"I'll tell Hank and Tom," Storm informed her, "You can tell Scott."

They departed to tell the other X-Men the plan, the room still swarming with Cyborgs. After the plan was explained, the X-Men began to make their way towards the series of holes in the floor. Tom grabbed two Cyborgs and crushed them in his enormous fists. He then swung the robotic corpses through the air knocking many more Cyborgs to the ground.. Tom then proceeded to stomp on any Cyborg unfortunate enough to be too slow in getting to their feet. Scott blasted a Cyborg with an optic blast and turned to face Jean.

"There's just too many of them," he said urgently, "There's no possible way that we're going to get anywhere in here!"

"We have to keep trying," Jean said back to him, hurling a Cyborg through the air with her mind, "This is our only chance."

* * *

Cory, Frank, and Lorenzo took a look around the dank room that they had entered. There were large, metal barrels lying throughout the room, apparently full of some kind of fuel.

"Hope this is the light switch," Cory said as he flicked a switch on the wall.

"No, it only opened an entrance," Frank said, pointing to a door on the far wall.

"Let's go check it out," Cory suggested. They began to walk towards the door. Just before they got there, the door closed.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Cory said, annoyed.

"Look!" Frank pointed back at the switch.

Locust was crouching under the switch wearing his usual sinister grin.

"Couldn't let you get away, now could I?" he asked, taunting them, "Now that you've got your powers back, you could actually cause some destruction."

"Get out of here, you oversized parasite," Cory warned.

"I don't think I will, thanks," Locust said, amused, "What could you possibly do to me? I don't think making me cold will do any harm."

"Don't underestimate it," Cory advised him.

"What else have you got?" Locust continued, "A toxic fire hydrant? Then there's the Mexican. Why don't you go back to your country and clean their water? Maybe it would put you to some good use."

"Le mataré!" Lorenzo yelled and ran towards Locust. Seconds before they collided, Locust jumped backwards into the wall. Locust then kicked the wall sending him backwards to land on a stack of the fuel barrels.

"Come and get me, ya dirty Mexican!" he taunted. He then breathed a great cloud of pestilence into the air in front of Lorenzo. Lorenzo took a few steps back and stopped.

"Technically, attempting the scheme that he is about to proceed with and calculating the probability of pyrotechnics being stationed on the story above with the fuel cells positioned on this floor, the risk of this maneuver is at a dangerously high level indicating that it probably should be discontinued," Frank said extremely quickly, attempting to stop Lorenzo from doing anything stupid.

Unfortunately, even if Lorenzo _had_ understood anything Frank had said, he still wouldn't have considered changing his actions. Clenching his fist, he lifted his hand into the air. Simultaneously, the fuel barrels beneath Locust were launched high into the air by a large column of water that had issued from the ground. Just before the barrels hit the ceiling, Locust leaped from harm to land feet away from Frank and Cory. The barrels bounced off of the ceiling and shattered on the floor, releasing the fuel within.

Frank made a throaty noise and spit a glob of caustic liquid towards Locust. Locust hopped backward, but not quickly enough. The glob landed in the middle of his right foot. Locust shrieked and clutched his foot in pain. Cory and Frank could hear the sizzling of skin from where they stood. At that precise moment, another jet of water burst from the floor launching Locust high into the air. He landed on top of another stack of barrels sending them rolling in all directions. Cory dived out of the way of a barrel, while Frank tried to hurtle over one. He was unsuccessful. Lorenzo zigzagged between the barrels to find Locust. Locust emerged from behind a fallen barrel, rubbing his head.

"Wasn't expecting this to be so tough," he thought to himself before scuttling away from Lorenzo's latest attack.

* * *

Mosquito tapped the door in which the secret elevator was held. The power controlling the door had been drained by another source.

"Blast! There's no power available," Mosquito said, extremely irritated, "The Cyborg Chamber is the only thing that could be using that much power."

"We'll have to take the long way, eh, mate?" Pyro suggested.

"Quite right," Mosquito agreed, touching Amara's forehead to keep her unconscious.

They continued down a nearby hallway. They had been walking only a few minutes when part of the ceiling caved in. The rubble was smoldering, scorched by a recent inferno.

"Looks like someone had a little trouble with their X-Kids," Pyro said, smiling.

"Well, perhaps not," Mosquito stated, "Whoever was in charge of that room might have just locked the doors on the children and burned it on purpose."

"Who's the fire expert, you or me?" Pyro asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, well, you of course, but..."

"Exactly," Pyro continued to walk down the hall.

* * *

Nightmare stood watching over one of the ladders leading up to the room that he and Magneto were in. He glanced over at Magneto. Magneto was just standing there watching Nucleo float in the large tube of greenish liquid. Nightmare looked back down at the ladders. Shadowy figures were appearing on the ladders. He flinched. It had just occurred to him that it was only him and Magneto against all the X-Men.

"Uh, I don't mean to interrupt your staring," Nightmare turned back to Magneto, "but how are we supposed to work this plan of yours if there's only two of us and tons of them?"

"Do you doubt me, Nightmare?" Magneto asked without turning around.

"Uh, no, of course not," Nightmare rolled his eyes, "but I'm just, er, curious about how you plan to do this."

"Stop worrying," Magneto instructed, still staring at Nucleo.

"Whatever," Nightmare grumbled and looked back at the ladders. The figures were getting closer. He spotted a shadow among the figures that was climbing the wall quickly.

"Magneto, I..." Nightmare started.

"What did I tell you?" Magneto turned around to face Nightmare, "Stop making such a fuss over the situation."

"But we're completely outnumbered," Nightmare burst out, "There's no way that we'll win this. What are you waiting for anyway?"

"I'm waiting for the perfect time that's all," Magneto said calmly.

"The perfect time?!" Nightmare yelled, "What do you think _this_ is? Just get it over with. I'd rather win now than lose later."

"There is no reason to get angry, Nightmare," Magneto said forcefully, "If you cannot suppress your concern for the situation, I will have to complete the plan by my self."

"What concern for the situation?!" Nightmare said, incredulous, "If anything _you_ should be concerned. You've got more at risk than I do."

He turned and looked back down at the ladders, "They're almost here."

Magneto walked back to the tube of green liquid.

"They're almost here," Nightmare repeated, more urgently.

He looked up at Magneto. All he saw was a large iron box hurtling towards him at high speed.

* * *

Toad paused for a moment and looked around the ladder room. He had suddenly noticed that the young X-Men that he was chasing weren't the only kids in the ladder room. Most of the other ladders were occupied by the other students.

"How do I get myself into these things?" he asked himself. He opened an air vent nearby, "Only one way outta this one."

Shawn looked down. He caught a glimpse of Toad crawling into an air vent.

"Well, we lost our attacker," he said to Melanie, Siryn, and the giant, seven-legged spider climbing the wall, all of which were climbing above him. He looked to his left. He could make out several figures climbing the other distant ladders. He suddenly heard voices from above. They were arguing loudly. Glancing upward, he noticed a silhouette of a head at the top of the ladder. The head disappeared. Someone was obviously waiting for them.

"Someone's waiting for us at the top," he warned, expressing his thoughts.

But, before he knew what was happening an iron box plummeted downward from above. Shawn looked up to see the form of someone plunging towards them. Shawn had no time to react as the falling person collided with Melanie over him.

"NOOOOOO!!" Shawn yelled as he hurled himself from the ladder after Melanie and the other form.

Shawn suddenly found himself on a rubbery surface, being lifted upward. He lifted his head to see that he was lying on his brother, who had transformed into some sort of creature that resembled a scaly squirrel with one arm mixed with a balloon.

"Aaron! What are you doing?!" Shawn shouted frantically, "I have to save Melanie."

The one-armed balloon squirrel let out noise like a squeaky dog toy.

"Of course I can save her!" Shawn gritted his teeth as the balloon-like squirrel lifted Siryn onto itself next to Shawn, "Aaron, why do you do this to me?!"

The one-armed inflated squirrel continued floating upwards, Shawn's protests clearly audible throughout the room.

* * *

Melanie sat up and looked around. She was sitting in the middle of a doughy substance that filled the entire room. She vaguely remembered the substance flowing out of a broken cupboard as they climbed the ladder a few minutes before.

Nightmare groaned. Was he in Heaven? He felt like he was sitting on a cloud. He shook his head to clear his vision. He found that he was sitting on a dough-like blob that filled the room. The iron box lay nearby. He looked around. He jumped. The very familiar blonde girl was sitting right next to him.

"Do I know you?" he asked, speaking his thoughts.

"Uh, maybe," the blonde girl replied.

"What's your name?" Nightmare inquired.

"Melanie, Melanie Seaton," the girl answered.

"Melanie Seaton," Nightmare repeated the name. It sounded incredibly familiar. Where had he heard it before?

"What's your name?" Melanie asked him.

"I'm Steve Lennox," he said, looking up, "Wait. Maybe I'm not."

"What?" Melanie looked confused.

Suddenly it clicked.

"Melanie?" Nightmare addressed her.

"What?" Melanie's expression became more bewildered.

"What are your parents' names?" Nightmare asked.

"I don't want to talk about my parents," Melanie closed her eyes.

"No, no, I need to know their names," Nightmare persisted.

"Fine, if you must know," Melanie said reluctantly, "My parents _were_ George and Amy Seaton. But, they don't want _me_. I'm a _mutant_. That's why me and my brother were..."

She stopped and looked up at Nightmare.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Nightmare scratched his chin.

"My brother had purple hair," Melanie said staring at Nightmare.

"When did your brother leave?" Nightmare asked hesitantly.

"He left after our parents found out that he was a mutant," Melanie said sadly, "They didn't know I was a mutant until a few years later. After they found out, I left and eventually found Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. That's where I'm staying now."

"I don't believe it," Nightmare rubbed his head, "You're my long lost sister!"

"Wait!" Melanie exclaimed, "If we're related, how come your last name is Lennox and mine's Seaton?"

"Oh, that's explainable," Nightmare began, "After I left our house, I roamed the streets for maybe a week. Then some real nice people took me in. They were Roger and Debbie Lennox. I changed my last name to theirs because, well, you know. But then they started getting behind on their taxes and I didn't want to burden them with my need for food and stuff, so I insisted that I leave. They agreed, but not right away. A few days later, I joined Magneto for a job."

"Why would you join Magneto?" Melanie asked as if Magneto were some kind of slug.

"Now that I think about it, I don't really know," Nightmare scratched his head, "But like I said before, I needed a job. Well, I'm not sticking around here anymore. Not after being knocked off that floor by my own boss. The man's off his rocker."

"Oh, well," Melanie said, standing up, "Let's get out of here."

"Sounds good to me," Nightmare stood and followed his sister out of the room.

* * *

Logan ran down the strange hallway, slashing every Cyborg in his line of vision. He had to find the mechanism that controlled the Cyborg creation. Turning another corner, he pounded the ground in rage at the dead end ahead of him. A quick glance showed him a grate that obviously led to a ventilation system.

Something clicked in his memory. The room full of switches. It was bound to have the switch to control the power. He sliced a hole in the grate and ran down the ventilation tunnel. Listening carefully, he heard a shriek of rage from far off followed by a loud clattering. He ran faster, not knowing where the tunnel would take him.

* * *

Packrat screeched furiously and brandished his dog leash menacingly. His half of a hockey stick was embedded in a wall nearby, while his tail was wrapped around his scythe. Massacre twirled a dagger in each hand. Packrat removed one of his cogs from his belt and hurled it at Massacre. Massacre easily avoided it by bending his body. With a leap, Packrat began running along the ceiling. Massacre ducked a swipe from Packrat's scythe and began flinging daggers at Packrat, giving the ceiling the look of a cave with stalactites hanging from it.

Packrat pulled another cog from his belt, throwing it immediately. It ricocheted off of one of Massacre's daggers and knocked the scythe from Packrat's tail. Massacre laughed as the scythe slid away across the floor into the darkness of the tunnel. Packrat dropped from the ceiling and landed smoothly on the floor. He slipped the flask of aged whiskey from his belt.

"Your last drink, eh, rat?" Massacre scoffed.

Packrat leaped high over Massacre, simultaneously smashing the flask over Massacre's head. Massacre stumbled, clutching his head and slipping in the newly spilled whiskey. Packrat threw his head back and gave a bone-chilling laugh. He took the last cog from his belt and stroked it, grinning maliciously.

Without warning, Packrat launched the cog at Massacre. With tremendous reflexes, Massacre deflected the cog with a dagger pulled swiftly from his own belt. During this reaction, however, a spark shot from between the metals of the cog and the dagger. Realizing the danger a split second before it was there, Massacre took off, running away down the tunnel. Packrat could only watch as the ancient whiskey ignited, blocking his escape.

* * *

Locust dived out of the way as a glob of toxic saliva flew towards him. Crouching behind a barrel he rubbed his hands. They were starting to become numb. Cory had been using his power ever since they had started the fight and the effects were starting to become evident. He gave a leap and landed in front of Cory and Frank. He knocked Frank to the floor with a quick kick to the chest. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled a mass of pestilence right into Cory's face. Locust felt himself warm up as Cory fell coughing to the floor.

Locust looked around the room. Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen. Locust looked back at the two fallen X-Men. Cory had slipped from consciousness. Frank was still recovering from getting the wind knocked out of him. Suddenly, from nowhere, a barrel flew through the air. Locust rolled out of the way just in time. Lorenzo darted out from behind a huge pile of barrels. Locust hopped onto a smaller pile of barrels. A twitch of his foot and the barrels were sent rolling towards Lorenzo. Without warning, the barrels were launched high into the air by a new set of geysers. Driven by the momentum, the barrels continued to move right on through the ceiling.

* * *

Magneto whirled around. He was suddenly surrounded by children. How had they climbed the ladders so fast? It didn't matter. He could stop them easily.

"I compliment you on your arrival to the top," Magneto said, smiling, "But it was all for your own loss."

"You can stop with your _mysterious wisdom_," Ray scowled, "We're not going anywhere."

"You've got us to deal with now," Bobby threatened.

"There's, like, nowhere to go but down," Kitty told Magneto.

Magneto laughed.

"Do you think you can stop me?" he said forcefully, "You are children who have inexperienced powers. I am a powerful mutant who can put you out of existence in a heartbeat. Perhaps you should consider the situation."

"He's right," said Shawn, still depressed from the earlier events.

"Shut up, bro," Aaron said, slightly sympathetic.

"Make your decision now, X-Men," Magneto stared at them.

Only a moment passed before Louis's arm became a vine and extended towards Magneto. Immediately, metal objects around the room began to float through the air. Rogue was nearly hit with a wrench. Kurt teleported from harm when a circular razor blade flew towards him. With a slight scream, Siryn shattered the large sheet of metal revolving around her.

Kitty phased through the flying debris to stop in front of the large tube filled with green liquid. She had to let Nucleo out. She glanced behind her. Magneto was busy struggling with Louis's hand which was closed around Magneto's throat. She began to search for any mechanism that would free Nucleo.

* * *

Xavier concentrated. He could see flames in a tunnel. Logan running across a hallway. The students surrounding Magneto. Max and Kyle fighting Sabretooth, Hammerhead, and Zombie. Pyro and Mosquito carrying Amara through the corridors. Massacre fleeing the building. Nightmare and Melanie searching for an escape route. Ruben and Rahne carrying Roberto and Sarah through an exit. X-Men fighting the Cyborgs. A fuel barrel being launched through a ceiling.

"It's time to go," Xavier turned to Mr. Kamon and Bear.

"Gobo Shmobo Kadobo in the Toshobo," Bear said grinning, "Whaddaya Nobo?"

"I don't understand what either of you are saying," Mr. Kamon complained.

"We're leaving," Xavier informed him.

"Leevin Smeevin over the Meevin with happy Weevin!" Bear shouted happily.

"You mean we're going back to the plane?!" Mr. Kamon said, dumbstruck.

"That is correct," Xavier said wheeling his chair around.

"Tek on Mek eatin a Yek Pek samwich," Bear said pounding his tiny fist into his palm.

"But we can't leave everyone inside!" Mr. Kamon protested.

"This building will be destroyed soon. Everyone else will find they're way out," Xavier assured him.

"Teverun'll phine ferwey poot," Bear said with a satisfied look at Mr. Kamon.

"Whatever you say," Mr. Kamon grumbled, clearly annoyed.

* * *

Logan kicked down the door to the switch room. He immediately began searching for the Cyborg switch. Elevator Power. Security Alarm. Main Garage Door. Self Destruct. Logan stared at the switch. He was very tempted to press it. Resisting, he thought about the possibility of instant death instead of a warning to everyone else. Skimming the walls, he discovered that the Cyborg switch was not among the legible labels. This meant that he had to check the illegible labels. He scanned the labels as quick as he could, but he couldn't read most of them.

He let out a roar of fury. His plan wasn't working. Sinking to his knees he tried to think. Glancing at the wall, he noticed a switch that he had skipped. Main Power. This would control the power to everything. That would include the lights, giving Magneto the advantage. He would have to wait.

* * *

Packrat stared at the white hot flames. There was no escape. There was nothing he could do. He sunk back to the end of the tunnel, cowering in fear.

* * *

Locust watched the barrel rocket through the ceiling. He instantaneously noticed a reaction take place. Somehow, there had been a fire above. The barrel instantly caught fire, enveloping the fuel inside it. The situation suddenly dawned on him. The permanent grin dropped off his face. He was standing in a room full of fuel. A burning barrel was currently plummeting down into this room. He shook the thought from his head and shot from the room.

Lorenzo also registered the situation around him. He quickly pulled Frank to his feet and lifted Cory onto his shoulders. Following the same path as Locust, he fled from the room.

* * *

Packrat jumped as a burning barrel burst through the floor of the ventilation tunnel. The barrel then began to fall back down to where it came from, taking the fire with it. Packrat peeked over the side of the hole into a room full of barrels. Even he could see the danger in a burning room full of flammable liquid. Leaping over the hole in the tunnel, he shot away from the inevitable explosion.

* * *

Another scream from Siryn shattered the tube of green liquid, freeing Nucleo from his prison. Magneto whirled around to face Kitty.

"You meddling X-Men will learn your place," Magneto lifted his arms and a huge chunk of machinery hurtled towards Kitty.

A number of things happened in that instant. Both Kurt and Sam simultaneously jumped to save her. Sam, using his cannon blast, missed completely and snatched Nucleo's unconscious body instead. Kurt caught Kitty, but Kitty had just begun to phase through the floor, causing Kurt to go with her. Sam disappeared through the ceiling leaving behind a gaping hole. The chunk of machinery simply smashed into thousands of pieces. A moment later the floor shook violently, knocking everyone but Magneto to the floor. Raising his hands, the walls and ceiling bent outward exposing the room to moonlight.

"This is not over, X-Men," Magneto gave one last look at the room and floated off into the darkness.

"How do we get out?" Jubilee asked, panicking, "That noise sounded like an explosion."

"Only one way out," Ray said grimly.

The X-Men looked out over the edge of the room into the trees below.

"Dude," Allen said seriously, "I'll break your fall."

"I can take some people down, too," Aaron offered.

"Ok, Aaron takes Siryn, Jubilee, and Rogue," Ray took control, "Me, Bobby, Shawn, and Louis can jump."

"Uh, I'm not complaining about having the women to myself," Aaron broke in, "but I can take more people."

"I'll go," said Shawn.

Allen picked up a slab of metal, examining it, "This will make a totally awesome 'board'."

With that he gave a little wave, hopped onto the metal and began 'boarding' down the roof. Aaron transformed into a gigantic, one-legged eagle and lowered his wings to let his passengers mount him. Ray, Bobby, and Louis watched him take off into the night sky.

"Allen!" Ray shouted over the edge, "Are you ready?!"

"Everything's chillin' on the thrill scale!" was the reply.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ray said to himself and jumped over the edge, followed by Louis and Bobby.

* * *

Max and Kyle raced down the hallway. They had escaped from Sabretooth, Hammerhead, and Zombie moments before and had just heard a distant explosion. Rounding a corner, they nearly ran into Ben, Evan, and Travis.

"What are you guys doing here?" Evan asked, stunned.

"Who cares," Kyle sputtered, out of breath, "There's no time."

* * *

Logan smelled burning fuel a moment before he heard the explosion. He immediately burst from the room back the way he came. The others might be trapped in the Cyborg room. His frustration took over soon after, as he couldn't find his way back to the room.

* * *

Cyborgs suddenly went flying in all directions. Bright flames had engulfed one side of the room. Cyclops turned to see a small iron ball rolling from the room.

"We have to get out of here," Cyclops ordered, "Follow me."

The X-Men ran from the burning room to a hallway that hopefully led to an exit.

* * *

Mosquito and Pyro were suddenly thrown through the wall, out into the moonlit air. Flames had burst from the inside of the building igniting everything in its path. Keeping hold on the unconscious Amara, Pyro felt himself being lifted by Mosquito's wings.

"Won't be able to hover up here," Mosquito warned, "Going to have to go lower."

A few feet from the ground Mosquito dropped Pyro into a pile of leaves and small twigs.

"I wonder what that was all about," Mosquito expressed his thoughts.

Pyro just stared, mesmerized by the burning building.

* * *

Xavier sat waiting inside the plane with Mr. Kamon and Bear. He knew his X-Men would arrive soon. He just hoped that they were all unharmed.


	10. Injury Check

Disclaimer: Well, it's the shortest chapter in the story. Well, excluding the prologue and epilogue, that is. Anyway, there is only one more chapter and an epilogue after this, I think. Then we'll think about my sequel. Although, I only have, maybe, three fans. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Oh, yeah, Pyro-hi, I wouldn't mind doing a fanfiction with you. It sounds a little complicated, but it sounds cool. (disappears mysteriously) stupid anti-asterisks

* * *

Xavier looked around the plane. His wish of no injuries had not been granted. Cory had developed some sort of horrible cough and lay unconscious next to Lorenzo. Packrat had obtained a few cuts and burns. Rahne was cradling Roberto in her arms, while next to her, Ruben held Sarah in his lap. Both Roberto and Sarah were still unconscious. Kyle had received a mighty slash across his arm and Max had gained a nasty looking bite. Aaron had apparently shattered his shoulder in his encounter with Photon.

Mosquito and Pyro had brought an unconscious, but otherwise healthy Amara into the plane escorted by Max and Kyle. Neither Mosquito or Pyro had seemed to have put up a fight, for Pyro had a dazed, faraway look in his eyes and Mosquito was too smart to attempt a scuffle with Max or Kyle. The two Brotherhood members had been followed by Nightmare and Melanie, who had suddenly found herself in an embrace from Shawn.

"Ah, well, don't know what came over me," he had said, turning a deep shade of scarlet, "Just happy that the team survived."

This comment had been followed by a snort of painful laughter from his brother.

"Um, I suppose that, uh, we ought to be going," Mosquito said nervously.

He hovered from the plane, dragging Pyro along with him.

"How about you, Steve," Xavier turned to Nightmare.

"Er, I," Nightmare seemed uncomfortable at being addressed by his real name, "I don't think I can go back."

"Very well," Xavier turned to Scott and Storm, "We should be on our way. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can treat our students' injuries."

Everyone buckled their seatbelts and prepared for the takeoff. Jean leaned over to Sam.

"Sam, what happened to Nucleo?" she asked.

"I lost him when I landed," Sam explained, "I tried to find him, but he just seemed like he disappeared."

"It's alright," Jean said comfortingly, "If you couldn't find him, Magneto won't be able to find him either."

* * *

The Brotherhood lay scattered around the huge pile of burning rubble. Pyro sat, mesmerized, watching the flames with a slight grin on his face. Many of the mutants were rubbing their heads. Paste was lying on the ground mumbling about his back. Sabretooth was examining his scorched hair.

"Where's Magneto?" Mosquito asked Massacre.

"He left," Massacre replied scornfully, "Left us here to burn."

"Oh, um, right," Mosquito hadn't really expected such a negative answer, "I suppose I'll take roll call."

After a few moments, he muttered, "Everyone's here except Nightmare and Magneto."

"Subtract Massacre," Toad mumbled, "He just left."

* * *

On the other side of the rubble, a figure with long silver hair walked away towards the darkness. Turning slightly, the moonlight reflected off of his glass eye.


	11. Back at the Institute

Disclaimer: This is the last chapter, people. Only an epilogue after this. And it's only half a page long. I must thank my few reviewers for their support. The upside is that I got more reviews than I have chapters. But, don't worry!!!!!! Never fear!!!!!!!! My sequel is coming. And if you want to read the sequel, YOU HAVE TO READ THIS FIRST. Very important rule, here. There are important things in this story that need to be known for the sequel. (disappears mysteriously)

* * *

Jean stared around at all the full hospital beds in the medical center. She felt bad for putting the students in so much danger, but she knew that if it hadn't been for them, they wouldn't have won the battle. She moved to Cory's bed. They had managed to find out that his cough was from inhaling Locust's breath, but they hadn't figured out how to cure it yet. Roberto had a bruised bump on his forehead and Sarah had some pretty bad burns on her arms. All they could do for Aaron was put a cast on what was left of his shoulder and wait for the bones to develop. She had bandaged Kyle and Volcano's wounds and had treated Packrat's cuts and burns.

"Dr. Grey," Roberto called from his bed, "When can I leave?"

"You're lucky you didn't get a concussion from that wrench," she replied, "You can leave when I feel you're ready."

Roberto moaned, "Kyle and Max got to leave."

"I only had to bandage them up," Jean explained, "They didn't have to stay and heal."

"How about Sarah, then," Roberto tried again, "You let her leave."

"All she has to do is come to me once a day to give her the Anti-Burn Cream for her arms," Jean told him, "I suppose you can leave. If you be careful."

"Thanks, Dr. Grey," Roberto hopped out of bed, caught a warning glance from Jean, and walked slowly from the medical center.

Reaching the Meal Room, Roberto received a hug from Rahne and greetings from everyone else.

"So, dude," Allen asked when Roberto sat down, "What's it like getting hit in the head with a wrench?"

"Uh, it's, um, really nice, Allen," Roberto said, giving Allen a weird look.

"Really!? That's what it was like 'boardin' down the roof," Allen smiled bringing back his memory.

"How's my brother doing?" Shawn asked him.

"I dunno," Roberto responded, "He looks the same as he always does except with a cast on his shoulder."

"Think you'll be up for a game of basketball later?" Louis asked, taking a bite of a hoagie.

"I might," Roberto grimaced, "Dr. Grey told me to be careful."

"It feels like the whole Brotherhood fighting, Magneto's hideout collapsing thing never happened," Ruben spit out his thoughts, "Life's back to normal."

Ray stared at him, but didn't say anything.

"Well, I'm off for my visiting hours," Shawn stood up, followed by Melanie. Nightmare glanced up at them.

"So, Steve isn't it?" Sam got Nightmare's attention.

"Uh, yeah, Steve works,"

"What's it like working for Magneto?" Bobby asked.

"It's worthless. You get no money, no happiness, no nothing," Steve answered, "Now that I think about it, I don't remember why I joined in the first place."

* * *

The students began to disperse. Xavier watched them from his office doorway. He wheeled himself back into his office to face Lorenzo Romero.

"Are you sure you must leave, Lorenzo?" Xavier asked.

"Sí, señor," Lorenzo answered, "I must find my own way in this world."

"If that's what you want," Xavier assured him, "But remember, if you're ever in need of shelter you can always feel welcome here."

"Gracias, señor," Lorenzo nodded and left the room.

* * *

A week later, everyone was out of the medical center. Aaron was allowed to walk around, but still had to wear his cast. They had finally found an cure for Cory's coughing and he was now as healthy as before. At the moment, Jubilee was sitting alone in her room, singing to herself, while listening to her Discman. She heard a voice behind her. She jumped to see Kitty sit down on the bed beside her.

"I didn't hear you come in," Jubilee turned off her Discman, "You scared me."

"Oh, sorry," Kitty apologized, "You know you, like, sing really good."

"I don't know," Jubilee said, flattered, "I don't really pay attention to it."

"It'd be, like, so cool if you sang in a band or something," Kitty said.

"Hmm," Jubilee felt the idea click in her head.

* * *

It was lunchtime the next day when Jubilee ran in to give her idea.

"Hey, guys, what do you think..." she was cut off by Allen.

"Dude, there's no such thing as extraterrestrial onions with golden fur."

"That's not what I said," Ruben protested, "I said that I wish Bobby would get rid of his festering socks before the walls rupture."

"Dude, I heard what I heard," Allen insisted.

"Plus, you used a six syllable word," Ray looked amazed, "Congratulations!"

"Allen," Shawn tapped him on the shoulder, "You have a pair of earplugs in your ears."

"Oh, and by the way," Aaron put in, "There _are_ such things as extraterrestrial onions with golden fur, bud."

"Do you guys ever have anything else to talk about than your worthless garbage?" Ray grumbled.

"Let's talk about the Munich Circus!" Kurt exclaimed.

"No, we'll talk about my dream last night," Kitty interrupted, "It had me standing in the kitchen with a tray of burnt muffins. Then, Sam came in and, like, decided to eat one. Then he, like, turned into a flying camel and broke the window. Then Jubilee came in and..."

"Aren't you guys listening!?" Jubilee shouted.

"Whoa, dude!" Allen's eyes widened in amazement, "You just appeared in the dream at this same time! That's so totally awesome!"

"Shut up, Allen," Ray mumbled.

"Guys, I had this idea yesterday," Jubilee continued.

"That reminds me," Aaron cut her short, "Shawn, did we finish that blueprint last night?"

"I believe we did," Shawn responded, "But let's keep that a secret for now. No need for eager eyes."

"Quite right," Aaron agreed.

"Aaarrggghh!" Jubilee gritted her teeth in frustration, "You guys aren't listening!"

"Yes we are," Ruben objected, "See, our ears are wide open."

He took hold of his ears and pulled.

"Anyway," Jubilee started again, "Wouldn't it be cool if we started a band?"

This triggered a number of reactions.

"That would be pretty cool."

Bobby.

"_That_ was your idea?"

Ray.

"_Aband_oning what?"

Allen.

"That's crazy. So crazy, it just...might...work."

Ruben.

"That is quite an appealing proposal."

Frank.

"I want to play something!"

Shawn.

"You have no musical talent."

Aaron.

"Yes, I do. I play the spoons."

Shawn.

"That's, like, an awesome idea!"

Kitty.

"You should have tryouts or something."

Travis.

"I like to sing."

Melanie.

"I'm musically challenged."

Louis.

"What a great idea!"

Kurt.

"Quiet!"

Jubilee.

Everyone stopped.

"We can have tryouts somewhere and maybe put on a concert or something," Jubilee suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," Aaron said.

"I'll get my spoons," Shawn grinned and rubbed his hands together.

* * *

Hank was walking down the hallway when he jumped a good three feet into the air. A deafening blast had just issued from a doorway to his right. Pushing the door the rest of the way open, he saw Allen sitting on a lower bunk with an electric bass. The bass was plugged in to a huge speaker, and as Hank adjusted his glasses he noticed the volume knob was turned all the way up.

"Uh, Allen," Hank walked into the room, "Don't you think you should turn that down a bit?"

"What? And wipe out the whole sense of awesomeness?" Allen stared at Hank unbelievingly, "Dude, you gotta be totally in the flow with the thrill scale."

"Um, ok, but maybe you could turn it down just a...a...a tiny bit," Hank found it difficult to lower his vocabulary to Allen's level.

"Aw, dude, if you really think I should," Allen sighed.

"I think it would be best for everyone," Hank attempted a smile.

"Well, I guess I could nudge the knob a bit," Allen gave in.

"Right," Hank gave a half grin and strode from the room. Kids were so different these days.

* * *

Bobby, Louis, Rogue, Kitty and Kurt sat in front of the stage that had been set up that afternoon. They had been selected to be judges for the tryouts. Everyone else who didn't want to try out were spectators. Bobby looked at the list of participants.

"Ok, we're starting guitar tryouts," he said importantly, "Jubilee's first."

Jubilee walked out onto the stage with a neon orange, electric guitar.

"I'm going to sing, too," Jubilee informed them.

"That's fine," Louis nodded.

"I believe the sun should never set upon an argument, I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands. I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you. I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do..." Jubilee continued to sing and play her guitar, while the five judges listened. Kitty recognized the song as "Affirmation" by Savage Garden. Jubilee had played it in their room many times before.

Following Jubilee they had Evan's attempt to play an unrecognizable song. He obviously didn't have any skills as a guitar player. Kurt had decided that he had to take a bathroom break and left in a hurry.

"What was that?!" Ray yelled from the audience, "Anyone here could play better than that!"

"You're right," Evan admitted, "I've never played guitar before."

"That explains everything," Ray said loudly.

"Let's see you try it!" Evan challenged.

"Fine," Ray stood up and walked to the stage.

Evan realized his mistake three seconds after Ray took the guitar from him. Ray had obviously learned to play guitar at a young age, for he began playing as if it was no effort at all.

"That good enough for you?" Ray asked when he was finished.

"Uh, yeah," Bobby said, amazed, "That'll do."

Louis just coughed.

Ray walked backstage to see a group of people waiting for their turn to try out.

"Dude, that was so awesome, I don't even know what to say," Allen was clearly impressed with Ray's guitar skills.

Ray looked around at the other people in line. He spotted Amara near the back of the group.

"What do you play?" he asked her.

"Drums," Amara said calmly.

"Drums? You play drums?" Ray couldn't see Amara playing drums, "No, seriously. What do you play?"

"I told you," Amara looked annoyed, "I play the drums."

"Right," Ray took another look around and went back into the audience.

The five judges continued to listen to the tryouts including Allen's bass exhibition, Ruben's groove on his synthesizer, Cory's harmonica demonstration, "Yoda" sung by Ruben, Travis's singing trial, Ruben's accordion recital, Kyle's trombone arrangement, Melanie's singing audition (which received loud applause from Shawn, who received stares from everyone else), and finishing with Amara playing the drums.

"Anyone else?" Rogue called.

"Ooh, me!" Aaron stood and waved his hands enthusiastically, "Pick me!"

"Me, too!" Shawn did the same while brandishing a pair of spoons.

"Go on stage," Kurt told them, rolling his eyes.

Aaron ran backstage and reappeared with a tenor saxophone. Shawn just stood there looking around, with a dumb-looking grin on his face.

"Are you ready?" Kitty asked them, "Who's going first?"

"_I_ am," Aaron said superiorly.

They all listened as Aaron played a jazzy song with exceptional talent. Shawn was still looking around the room, grinning. When Aaron was done, he gave an over-exaggerated bow and began to walk from the stage. He suddenly realized that Shawn was still on stage.

"Shawn, what are you doing?" Aaron started to walk back towards his brother, "You can't play anything."

"Yes, I can," Shawn objected, "I can play the spoons!"

With that, he tapped the spoons together a few times. Aaron gave a gasp of sarcastic surprise.

"You're a natural!" he exclaimed with mock disbelief, "Now get off the stage!"

"Aww," Shawn lowered his head, "I'm hungry, when's dinner?"

"We'll have the results with you tomorrow," Bobby announced.

"Yeah, after an extremely long sleep," Louis yawned.

* * *

Bobby found himself surrounded by people the next morning when he entered the Meal Room.

"Who's in the band?"

"Am I in it?"

"You didn't tryout!"

"Oh, oops."

"What's going on here?!" Scott broke the crowd.

"Hey, Mr. Summers, how's it going?" Shawn asked pleasantly, offering Scott his hand.

"Fine," Scott said, ignoring Shawn's outstretched hand, "Now answer my question. What are you doing?"

"We're asking Bobby about the results," Rahne told him.

"Results of what?" Scott asked suspiciously.

"The tryouts for the band," Roberto explained.

"Band?" Scott's eyebrows lowered.

"Yeah!" Aaron shouted enthusiastically, "You got it!"

"This had better not be a trick," Scott warned and walked away.

"Alright," Bobby said when Scott had left, "Travis is lead singer, Jubilee and Melanie are background singers, oh, and Jubilee plays guitar, too. That brings me to the other guitar. The other guitar player is Ray."

"What?!" Ray shouted, "I didn't even try out!"

"Well, actually, you did," Kurt pointed out, "You went up on stage and played the guitar."

"But, but," Ray couldn't think of anything to get him out of it, "Fine."

"As I was saying," Bobby continued, "Allen's playing bass, Ruben plays the keyboard..."

"Synthesizer," Ruben corrected him.

"Whatever," Bobby rolled his eyes, "And Amara plays the drums."

"Wait a minute," Aaron protested, "What about me?"

"Yeah, we tried out like everyone else," Kyle put in.

"Uh, Aaron, Kyle, and Cory will have to play in only some of the songs," Bobby said, nervously.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aaron asked skeptically.

"It means that you'll have, uh, how would you explain it..." Bobby scratched his head.

"They'll have a cameo appearance!" Allen blurted.

"That's in movies," Shawn whispered in his ear.

"Oh," Allen seemed to ponder this new piece of information.

"Do you mean that they'll only play in some of the songs?" Ruben asked.

"That's what I said before," Bobby said, slightly irritated.

"I mean, do you mean that they'll only be playing in some of the..." Ruben tried again.

"Shut up, Ruben," Ray muttered.

"I couldn't resist," Ruben chuckled.

"They could have solos or play background," Bobby explicated, "In some of the songs."

"Oh, I get it now," Aaron said.

"He just said what I said," Ruben protested, "Only it was different."

"Whoa," Allen's confusion suddenly overwhelmed him.

"Are you kids getting breakfast, or what?!" Mr. Kamon yelled across the Meal Room, "If you're not hungry, GET OUT!"

Mr. Kamon was back to normal.

Storm walked into the Meal Room.

"You know you have classes today, don't you?" she asked, knowing the answer.

There was an immediate scatter to get out of the Meal Room.

* * *

The members of the band had decided to have practice after their classes that day. They all met in the room that they used for tryouts.

"So what are we supposed to be playing?" Ray asked irritably.

"I have a lot of ideas on that," Ruben announced.

"And we already know what they are," Amara said, preventing Ruben from expressing his obvious repertoire of songs.

"Weird Al's not a bad singer," Ruben protested.

"I didn't say that," Amara said defensively, "I just said that we can't have the band playing Weird Al songs throughout the whole concert."

"How about some songs?" Ruben asked innocently.

"Maybe two," Amara gave in, "but that's all."

It seemed to be enough for Ruben, for he let out a yell and danced in a circle for the next few moments.

"So what else would we sing?" Travis asked.

"How about if everyone picks a few songs to play," Melanie suggested.

"Dude, that'll be awesome," Allen smiled, "We'll have a big mix concert."

"Uh, yeah," Ray stared at Allen, "So what do we do now?"

"I guess we can go pick out our songs," Amara shrugged.

Ruben looked up. Everyone had left.

"Hey, I found my songs!" he said to the empty air, "Where'd everyone go?"

A week later, notices began to appear in the hallway stating that the band would have their concert on the last day of the month. Anticipation began to fill the school for the upcoming event.


	12. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Well, this is the end. Coming soon to a theater near you. (Don't count on it). MY SEQUEL!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! If you didn't like the first story then don't waste your time with the second. Actually, you might as well read just for kicks. Oh, and review it, too. (hint, hint) Oh, yeah, and Pyrotic wanted more publicity, so here goes. Thank you, Pyrotic for your characters, your reviews, and your soul, I mean, no, I didn't steal anyones soul.  
(disappears mysteriously)

* * *

Xavier rolled himself into Cerebro's Chamber. Placing the headpiece on his head, he activated Cerebro. The bright figures of mutants around the world flew through the chamber, surrounding Xavier. He concentrated a little harder finding the form of Nucleo.

* * *

Scott walked into Xavier's office to find Jean, Hank, Tom, Logan, Peter, Ben, Storm, and the Professor himself already waiting.

"Did you find anything?" Scott asked, sitting down.

"Nucleo has hidden in what I believe to be Brian's old cave," Xavier explained, "I also believe that he is plotting to create a team of his own and seek revenge on Magneto."

"One war after another," Storm commented.

"I have also begun tracing certain mutants' histories," Xavier continued, "I feel that they may be important in the future."

"Anything else?" Logan asked.

Xavier hesitated. This was the piece of information he was unsure about telling the X-Men.

"Well, I have gotten the feeling that we won't be relaxing for long," Xavier said in warning.

"Is it Magneto?" Scott asked in disgust.

"No," Xavier sighed, "I'm afraid that this new group of mutants may be more of a threat than Magneto will ever become."


End file.
